How & Why
by randomsomeone
Summary: A psychological war gets completely out of control. Lust doesn't cut it and love doesn't just happen, so how else can it work? GaaSaku, Finished!
1. Default Chapter

This monster was originally supposed to be a oneshot, pounded out of the way so I could work on my parody. Instead, the thing metastasized, and the parody was eaten. Written post-manga #237, pre-time jump. Yes, there're spoilers!  
No, I don't own anything from here. I had the fish at one point, but he died.  
Music/mentality: Five Pointe O - Christ

●●● 

If he hadn't shifted at that exact moment, Sakura would have walked straight past him. As it was she only slowed, sparing him a glance, before coming to the decision that she at least owed the Sand ninja her thanks.

Her halt, her consideration, and her approach were all met by the same dispassionate stare. Gaara didn't move from where he leaned against the wall, didn't blink once, watching her until she was certain he only did it to make her uncomfortable.

Sure of this, she refused to look away from him. The clench of her jaw brought his first response—a smirk.

His eyes were still damned unpleasant, she noted. But the markings around them . . . Naruto had told her at one point about their once-adversary, about his self-induced insomnia. The level of self-control, of willpower necessary to deny such a basic need was completely beyond her.

The twist of his mouth made her aware that she was staring silently, and had been for long enough to warrant his next response. "Well," he said. "You want something?"

"I wanted to thank you for saving Lee."

The expression deepened as his chin lowered, his irritation becoming more prevalent. "It was an order."

"But still—"

"It was an _order._" His lips slid back from his teeth.

It seemed that his sentiments were infectious. The way he looked away from her again, as if dismissing her so easily . . . Her fists clenched, then relaxed. No, she wouldn't lose patience. Not over something like him. "I talked to Lee already. You could have waited those extra seconds it would have taken for him to be killed, but you didn't. Your sand protected him."

His hands clenched as he unfolded his arms. His antipathy was perfect, complete. "Does it matter?"

"Yeah . . . Because you didn't let him die," she replied. And the returning silence from this boy said it all. Truly realizing the significance of his actions regarding Lee, she could not hold back a fleeting smile of satisfaction.

The ferocity in his responding glare told her that she had just made a mistake.

However, no matter their past or whatever his mindset could be, he couldn't kill her. Sand and Leaf were allies again. Attacking her would destroy the truce, and he _had_ to know it as well as she did. And it was because of this that she gave her spite free reign, allowed herself to step forward. This was the one that had mercilessly caused Lee so much pain, who had almost killed her Sasuke . . . But he couldn't harm her.

But if the way his weight and expression shifted were any indications, he was suddenly as wary of her as though she'd also become one of his more trying opponents.

From him, that might be something of a compliment. And though her stomach clenched unpleasantly at her emerging plan, it wouldn't do for the Fifth Hokage's new apprentice to leave a potential advantage unexplored. Her steady progression towards him brought his head up, brought a low hiss. "What are you—"

"Thanking you."

"_I don't want your thanks."_

Barely thirteen years old and already one of the most monstrous killers she'd ever heard of. But he couldn't kill her.

Wild, wide green eyes and the faint glint of teeth marked his unease as he straightened. The loose grains of sand skimming along her skin as she stepped within arm's reach disclosed his agitation, but no hands solidified or lifted to otherwise stop her. If his expression was any indication, he . . . didn't know how to handle her?

Her cheeks heated momentarily as Lee's synopsis of the afternoon's events came back to her. No, he wasn't some crazed animal; just a person twisted by those around him until he didn't know how to deal with common society.

It was nearly impossible to hurt him; she'd seen that at the chuunin exams. However, he could be touched. She'd seen that, too.

All she had to do was get under his guard.

He couldn't kill her. Clutching that ideal as tightly as a child with a safety blanket, she reached out.

"It doesn't matter," she whispered. At her height, her chin fit perfectly over his shoulder as her arms went around him, hands skimming against muscles stiff with surprise. Sakura realized with a shock how thin he was as his scapulae dug into her forearms. Had the inhuman power she remembered come from this small form?

Her response came as he finally moved, hands rising almost sluggishly. Ready to be pushed away, she loosened her grasp . . . only to feel his sleeves brush her sides before he locked onto her in a vicious approximation of an embrace. Taut muscles shook as his arms shifted to encircle her completely, leaving her to wonder when anyone had even attempted to hold him last.

She wasn't sure how long they stood there, as his shudders subsided, as their body heat mingled and she became familiar with his scent. Eventually, though, the near-painful grip loosened, and she was able to step away.

Gaara's expression was no longer hard or hateful as his hands traced down her retreating forearms and fell away. "You . . ."

She couldn't shake the feeling that her spite had started something much more serious. "I've got to go."

●●●

The feeling manifested itself the next day. Sakura was a good student, a decent ninja. She didn't willingly seek out trouble. Trouble, instead, followed her to her front door and insulted her, her ninja skills and her lack of strength, elaborating and continuing until she expected him to start attacking the cut of her dress and how she wore her hair. Eventually, Gaara's derisive tone wore down her apprehension and provoked her into snapping back at him.

"If I'm so horrible and so awful, if you detest me this much, then why don't you find someone else to harass?"

Surprisingly, he smiled. It was like watching a snake smile.

No, she corrected herself. She'd seen a snake smile, right before he bit Sasuke and shredded her dream of a happy ninja team into the tatters of childish wishes. This was something different, yet no less disturbing.

A _normal_ creature, she noted to herself, would have run after being cornered and petted. This one apparently felt the need to come back for more attention.

"You're the first girl to willingly stand up to me," Gaara said. "And you're one of the few that has stood up to me and lived."

"You _expect_ me to let you to walk all over me, like . . ." She gesticulated frustratedly. "Like I'm some kind of doormat?"

"No."

"Then what am I _supposed_ to do?"

He shrugged. If anything, her frustration seemed to amuse him more.

She grit her teeth, inhaled deeply, and was finally about to verbally tear into him when she remembered his actions from the previous day; his near-panicked grip, his body shaking against hers. Those, coupled with earlier memories of being crushed by sand . . . She halted herself and forced another deep breath before responding. "Why me? Why not Naruto? He'll give you all the fight you want."

With her near-contrite questions, his smile faded. He blinked as if considering the implications of her words, as if he were suddenly searching for his own reasons. For a few seconds he was silent. Then came the answer, in clipped, brusque tones: "You remind me of someone."

With that, he turned on his heel and marched off, leaving her to contemplate the depths of his insanity, to wonder who she could possibly remind him of.


	2. 2

And to think, it all originally wanted to be a oneshot.  
(Music at the time: Delerium - Silence v. Five Pointe O – Double X Minus)

* * *

It was a good thing she didn't see him for months at a time. However, the occasions that fate chose to throw them together were marked by the twisted antagonism of each towards the other. A smirk was met with a sneer, a glare with a mirthless flash of teeth, a considering smile matched with a snarl.

She would turn to find him right behind her. He would start, hissing, as she moved close enough to brush her arm against his.

Expression, proximity, even the slightest touch was a weapon, and they were playing for keeps. He seemed to be out for her sanity. She wanted to crack his control, to drive him into an emotional response she could understand. Tensely, sadistically, they pressed on.

So close. So careful.

She had only worried for a little while, only refused to play along until he lambasted her for her cowardice.

"Is this the girl that I knew before, the same one that dove in front of me to save her friend with such determination? You would fight to save the deserter against what I can become, but refuse to stand up for yourself as I am now?" He spat out the accusation. "Pitiful."

"How am I supposed to know that you won't turn on me?"

"What good are you to me dead?"

"What good am I to you now?"

"_This . . ." _His face twisted into something that was half-smile, half-sneer, and wholly disturbing. "Is _exciting."_

She was a source of amusement for someone that had been known to kill people for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Such a delegation eventually made her angry. If he could use her in that way, then she could return in kind. But the constant battle of wills, of wits - she hadn't expected to like it as much as she did. He met her on a mental level, the only battleground where they proved even close to equal. Such clashes were intoxicating.

She couldn't hope to match the willpower needed to keep him awake, but she could certainly stand toe to toe with him and insult his penchant for carrying around that much bloody sand, for walking around smelling like he'd been rolling on the floor of a slaughterhouse.

Their always public interaction sometimes drew attention. Naruto stared at her after that particular episode, horrified. "Sakura, are you trying to get yourself _killed?_"

"It's ok, though," she answered. But the intricacies of their dance eluded her friend. All he saw was her diving headlong into the sandy jaws of a monster for reasons he couldn't understand.

Gaara sought her out and cornered her the next day, close enough for her to notice that he now smelled like pine needles. There was no way to ignore the mocking disgust in his tone. "Is this better?"

"It's almost as if you're presentable."

His expression could have been either a grimace or a smile. The next time she saw him, he smelled like blood again.

Tsunade caught her researching possession techniques alongside her assigned medical ninja's readings, but let her go with a faint smile and a quip about "knowing your enemy." At least the Fifth had faith in Sakura's ability to get out of the situation should it turn ugly.

A few months after her thirteenth birthday came Gaara's first true win against her. She hadn't been paying close enough attention to where he was, concentrating instead on remembering one of Tsunade's lessons. When he rounded on her, radiating aggression, she had backed up two steps.

The momentary disappointment he had shown was almost as bitter to swallow as the contempt dripping from his voice. "You're still afraid."

Any excuses she could have made would have been just that: excuses. She bit her tongue and glared in silence.

Two steps. She could make him regret them both.

Her best weapon was still the one he seemed least prepared to deal with, and she used it as tauntingly as she could. For a while she was afraid that he would even become accustomed to her touch, but the myriad of ways he responded said that it would take far more than the occasional brush of her fingers over his to make such actions less of a flashpoint.

One shield, and she won. If he finished pulling away, she won. All of his scowls and verbal jabs were met with various levels of physical contact. A glare was his only response to the whisper of their sleeves together, and his walking away from her ankle rubbing against his was too brusque to be natural, too slow to be a retreat. His muscles would tense at the press of her hand against his back, but he refused to move.

She stood beside him once, tracing his arm from elbow to hand, speculating out loud as he stared straight ahead. "Your brother and sister aren't this thin. But . . ." Her fingers attempted to encircle his wrist, failed. "You may catch up to them after all."

He growled, finally turning to her. "Want to check my teeth next?"

"I'm just wondering when you intend to put on some weight. It might make you easier to look at." The words managed to come out sounding affectionate, which seemed to unsettle him all the more.

Not to mention herself. Idly, she wondered if that meant his assault on her sanity was more effective than her touch. She watched him swallow his snarls with a sort of horrified glee and momentarily worried that she might push him too far, might drive him to lash out.

But he didn't lash out. His eventual response was far worse—to return the gestures she made to him. The hand that touched his was caught, squeezed. Two weeks after her fourteenth birthday, on a mission to Stone and in a near-empty street, her calculated slide past him was truncated by the arm that glided across her hip and around her. Caught, with only inches between them, Sakura was forced into a gently definite offensive. Her palm caressing his cheek brought a sharp intake of breath. Curiosity prompted her to rub a careful thumb over the corner of his eye, over the blackness there.

His eyes were still unpleasant, but she might be getting used to them.

If one didn't pay attention to how he bared his teeth at her, to the determined set of her jaw, to how they both shook, then it may have appeared peaceful. Instead, the half-embrace was only a parody of affection.

Fingertips grazed his earlobe, traced his jaw. "Who do I remind you of?"

"Someone gone." His breathing was shallow, rapid. The arm around her flexed. "Someone I killed."

His other arm raised as he continued. "I let them get too close, and they tried to kill me. It was my mistake."

Before she could think of a response, she was engulfed, enfolded, pressed fully against him. He'd gotten too tall for her chin to fit over his shoulder as easily as before, so she settled for resting her cheek against his collarbone.

Lonely, Lee had said.

Never found anyone to recognize him, Naruto had said.

She was suddenly sure that his near-violent reactions to her touch were as such not because they came from her, but because he was so unused to physical contact.

"I hate you," he hissed. His strength was terrifying, but she refused to show fear.

Her arms pulled away from her chest to slide around him, fitting in the space between the dip of his gourd and his back as her next words marked an evolution in their game. "But we all crave affection. Even this."

The arms around her clenched tighter.

"Why do you think that is?" she whispered.

He didn't say anything for long enough to make her think that he wouldn't respond. Eventually, though, he drew a careful breath.

Kakashi had mentioned Gaara's strange sort of eloquence before, had mentioned how he'd appeared at Sasuke's training and launched a diatribe against the other boy's losses and feelings. Now she was witness to something along the same lines.

"We need it. We need it for survival. Without another to hold, to touch, to interact with, we're alone, and loneliness can destroy a person in crueler ways than even I could."

She would definitely have bruises from him the next day, but trying to make him loosen his grip was unthinkable.

"This interaction." Sakura pulled her head away from his shoulder to get a better look at his face. "This is what you need?"

As her hands began a careful trace down his sides, he flinched, then pulled away. His lips moved as if he had something else to say before his fists clenched and he disappeared in a swirl of sand.

She'd gotten her response, but it was unsatisfying. It was her victory, but she couldn't bring herself to relish it.


	3. 3

A definite shout-out to those that listen. My appreciation is immeasurable.  
Music: Android Lust—Suffer the Flesh (Ultraman) v. Breaking Benjamin—So Cold

* * *

"_I don't need you."_

Sakura turned at the grating sound of his voice, shifting the bag of groceries against her hip and blinking into the late afternoon sunlight. She could ignore him and continue home. She could ask him what he was doing in Leaf, as the last time she'd checked the Hokage didn't grant outside shinobi access to their village just for the sake of harassing people.

Or she could simply watch him, slack-jawed, as he crouched on the low stone wall, as his hands clenched and unclenched, as he positively vibrated with fury.

Apparently the three days it had taken her to finish the mission in Stone and return home were enough time for Gaara to mentally shift from a retreat to a dramatic offensive. She hadn't seen him that blatantly close to completely losing control for years.

After that realization came one that said she had stepped too far, that the response she had been seeking from him had come at too high a price. Cracking him was one thing. Driving him over the edge was another.

Flurries of sand marked both his departure from his perch and his materialization in front of her. Aggression? Aggression seemed too bland a word. He closed in on her like a force of nature, stopping just short of contact, his breath coming short from between his clenched teeth.

On some level, Sakura wondered what would have happened if she hadn't been frozen, prey caught by the stare of the predator. If her legs had obeyed her mind's first command and run, would his disappointment or his rage have been the first to catch up with her?

Asking him why he kept returning if he _didn't_ need her would only set him off. Going up against him in this state could only be suicide. She swallowed until she felt more sure of her voice, then tried for an innocuous reply.

"I know."

"You don't know. You don't know _anything._"

He reached up towards her face, fingers hooked, straining tendons standing out in his wrists and the backs of his hands. Sure that he actually meant to physically harm her, Sakura set her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut.

Nothing happened. She stayed still, refusing to open her eyes, counting his panting breaths.

"This submission," he snarled. "What are you thinking? Fight me!"

"I'd have no chance," she whispered.

"Better to stand and face me than to die an animal's death. No, not an animal's. An animal would try to run, or at least meet its fate with a display of courage. This . . ."

A small breeze on the skin of her cheek said that his hands had been very close.

The rasp of his voice was right beside her ear. "Show me your anger. Hate me! This fear is not what I—"

The words broke off suddenly, but there were only two true directions he could have gone from there.

The radiant heat on her face said that if she leaned forward only a little, she would touch him.

"Want?" she finished. "Or need?"

She opened her eyes to see him staring intently at some point beyond her shoulder, hands dangling at his sides. Having boxed himself in, he refused to reply.

Her readings into the technique that had created him said that his instability was beyond what the insomnia and possession could account for. At times, she found it remarkable that he had actually survived for as long as he did.

"Why hate?" she asked.

Green eyes finally met hers. "You're no fun unless you're angry."

He didn't seem like he was having the least bit of fun, but she wouldn't remind him of that. He'd avoided her question, also. Trying to find the answer on her own, she only came up with one possibility: That hate was an easier reaction for him to deal with.

She could let his avoidance slide if he could let her make a careful escape.

"I have to get my groceries home," she said, nodding towards the bag that she had unknowingly partially crushed.

"I have a message to deliver."

"And you—"

"I found you first." He scowled at her once, for good measure, then turned and walked away.

Having him around, she decided, was like having a large, venomous, carnivorous reptile as a companion. She couldn't pet it. Her friends didn't understand her association with it. And if this was its idea of affection, she would be better off returning it to the wild.

●●●

He was back under control when he found her outside of the Hokage's quarters a month later, wiping impotent tears and shaking with frustration.

"I've seen this look before," he said, voice cool, even. "Defeat."

"Go away," she snapped. When he made no motion to do such, she turned her back on him.

"You had_ best_ been broken for a good reason."

"I'm not broken."

"I haven't made you cry yet."

She ignored the veiled threat the words carried, knowing as she spoke that a search for any sort of sympathy from that corner was beyond futile.

"I'm training to be a medical ninja with the Hokage. Was training. The Fifth told me that I wasn't taking things seriously enough, and to come back when I could _handle_ it."

"And so you've given up."

She bit her lower lip, inwardly cringing. His voice had carried the sneer so perfectly she could see how his mouth twisted without actually turning around.

He continued. "And from here you shall do what? Wallow in your self-pity? Drop your intentions to better yourself in order to marry a mediocre ninja and further reduce yourself to nothing but breeding stock? Better to let me kill you, to end your miserable existence right now."

A tongue of sand slid around her ankle, started to climb her calf.

She whirled, eyes wide with horror. _"No."_

From ten feet away, Gaara's expression reflected a terrible, sadistic form of amusement. "You refuse?"

"I will not . . ." She swallowed, clenched her teeth. "What is it with you? First you want me to fight, and now you want me to give in?"

"Do you know how foolish it is to think of things in terms of what I want?"

"I think of things in terms of what will keep you from killing me!"

"There are better things for me to do with you than kill you."

Her mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. "You had better be talking about arguing."

He blinked as if the implications of his statement had just reached him, then snorted. "Of course. What else are you good for?" The sand around her calf fell away to join him as he turned and headed towards the building's entryway.

Horrible. Frustrating. Had ripped her out of her sadness as easily as she might tear a piece of paper in two.

She suddenly remembered Naruto at their first chuunin exam, remembered his rage, how the hand he had been raising in defeat had slammed onto his desk instead as he screamed out his defiance.

That.

She crashed through the doors of Tsunade's office, her anger bolstering her, making her feel taller, stronger, more capable. In the midst of exchanging scrolls with Gaara, the Fifth looked up, mild shock furrowing a small line on her forehead.

Sakura set her feet and pointed at the older woman, voice shaking with emotion. "I will not give up. This is my future. This is my calling." Her hand lowered, clenched into a fist. The harsh, clipped sounds emerging from her mouth hardly seemed to be her own words. "Do _not _play games with me about this. I don't need to have you try to psych me away from what I am going to be."

Tsunade's lips twitched mirthlessly. "It took you less time than I thought it would."

Beside her, Gaara gave a toothy grin of total, demented delight. Sakura sneered at him. He smiled fully in response, his open mouth and glinting eyes reminding her of nothing more than how he'd looked when she'd seen him half-transformed, as he shrieked his demands for a worthy opponent.

She couldn't be afraid.

She couldn't let him slide.

Putting as much contempt into the gesture as she could, she pursed her lips at him in a mock kiss.

Tsunade glanced at her messenger, then back at her apprentice. "I take it this was, in part, his fault."

The Sand ninja shrugged, his lingering expression throwing off the mildness of the gesture. "She was in my way."

Sakura hissed wordlessly at him.

The Fifth folded her arms. "I see. Gaara, you're dismissed."

Smirking, he didn't look at either of them as he silently exited the room.

Tsunade sighed as she sank into the chair behind her desk. "I knew something was up when he didn't stop watching the door."

Sakura retrieved the book she had left behind earlier, then looked up, her anger fading yet still bright. "Why did you do it?"

"Because you were drifting off, and because I wanted to see how you would react. A good medical ninja should know when to not give up." The other woman's tone was conversational, friendly. "I didn't expect him to get involved, though. Did you know he's been requesting to act as messenger between Sand and Leaf? It's below his abilities and his station, but it keeps him out of Sand and out of trouble, so the Kazekage agreed." There was a pause as Tsunade considered her. "I believe it's safe to say that he's fixated on you."

She wasn't sure if she wanted to be the object of such attention. His meeting her on occasion was one thing. His deliberately seeking her out was another. She told him as much the next time she saw him, standing close, her hand pressed against the flexing muscles of his stomach.

"I want to keep an eye on you," he said in response. "I refuse to allow you to be defeated by anyone but me."

"You only want me to submit if you can force me into it, yet you'll drag me away from the edge of doing so. You make no sense."

It took all of her willpower not to shudder as his fingertips ran up her spine in a hideous, violating caress. His tone was gentle, at odds with what he was saying. "I want to be there when you break. I want to savor it."

"All you do is want."

"I could need."

She did shudder then, and he smiled. The hand on her back pulled her in carefully, slowly, giving her every opportunity to run before pressing her against him.

His dubiously innocent quip about uses for her when they were outside of the Hokage's door had been unexpected. Her unfortunate reaction had given him a new weapon, a weapon he apparently intended to use as cruelly as possible. Their game had suddenly become infinitely more dangerous.

He was very warm. She couldn't place what he smelled like. Something close to yet totally alien from fear made her hand clench against his stomach, gripping onto and wrinkling his shirt.

His breath whispered over her ear. "What if I do need? What if I need you to give me new meaning, purpose?"

"What of your old purpose?"

"I was created to destroy. That purpose shall never change."

Touching his face still seemed to startle him, prompted a slight widening of his eyes, a tightening of the arm around her. "Then what do you need from me?"

"What are you willing to give?"

"I've apparently sacrificed my sanity to you already," she said, bitterly.

"Perhaps. And for now, it may have to be enough." He withdrew his arm and stepped back, leaving her cold where they had been touching before.


	4. 4

(Music: Lacuna Coil—Entwined)

* * *

She was going to do it.

It had to be done before things went even more out of hand. He was only acting out to upset her, with the fleeting touches, the considering looks, the near-warm embraces, the ease of his double entendres—and he was succeeding. She was retreating, and she hated it. She couldn't show disgust because it would encourage him. She couldn't show appreciation, because she was sure that kind of encouragement would twist the game in such a way that she would end up under him.

He'd laugh if she bolted. He'd win if she bolted. She would not run from him.

The wire she was walking, had been walking for the past few months, was far too thin for her liking. But she might be able to make him back off.

She'd passed him on his way to the Hokage's. His only sparing her a glance meant that whatever message he carried this time was of some importance, but the nod said that he'd find her later.

To a degree they'd become creatures of habit, had come to an understanding on some levels that was beyond words. Sakura reflected on how this was also mildly disturbing as she waited outside of the Fifth's for him.

Understanding or no, she'd still do it.

The fact that Tsunade had taken a mild interest in the proceedings between the two didn't help a bit. It was reasonable, she supposed, that the woman keep track of what had become the primary source of stress in her student's life. But she didn't like that the Hokage seemed to be associating them with each other, and definitely did not need her asking how he was.

"You have a better understanding of what's going on with him than I do," Tsunade had shrugged. "I only see him for business."

Sakura refused the implications of what she was seeing him for, then.

For that, also, she'd do it.

He stopped upon exiting the building, apparently not expecting her to be waiting for him, definitely not expecting her careful advance. It was only with a second's hesitation that his arms went around her in acceptance when she reached for him, his cheek pressing against her ear.

Now. Now that she was back under his guard, she could slip the verbal knife between his ribs and gain herself the distance she so desperately craved. She'd had the speech planned out for a week: _I don't know why everyone thinks you're such a monster, Gaara. You're not so bad, up until you go completely out of your mind and start killing everyone. Why'd they decide to make you, again? And how could they honestly ever want to keep you around? _

She inhaled to begin, but with a sigh, he relaxed against her. His shoulders sagged, his chin became a weight on her shoulder, and his hands shifted against her back, the pressure of his fingertips dwindling to a vaguely warm sensation.

I let them get too close, he'd said. It was my mistake, he'd said.

With a shock, she realized that she truly was totally under his guard.

He surely expected some sort of attack, some aggression on her part, something that he would usually only be amused by. If she chose to carry on with her plan, then this arrogant certainty, this childlike trust would be destroyed.

And she couldn't do it.

If he was in her place, he would tell her that trust was for weaklings and idiots, that compassion was for those afraid to have to rely on themselves. Yet he didn't move, and she still couldn't do it. Her usual goal of throwing him off stride wasn't nearly the same thing as trying to break him.

Sakura blinked, startled. With that in mind, his previous nonsensical actions suddenly made complete sense. He was happy to shove her around as long as she shoved back, to taunt and threaten as long as she countered, to fight with her as long as neither of them had to have a final, total win. Intentionally, maliciously hurting each other wasn't a part of this.

When she spoke, it took concentration to avoid the preformed sentences, the cutting questions. "You've gotten used to me."

The movement of his cheek against her ear said that he was smiling, however faintly. His voice was a slow near-whisper, words carefully chosen as his hands flexed against her body. "In our youth and our insanity we may forget the simple pleasure of another's touch."

Was his touch pleasant? Did she actually enjoy even this part of their conflict?

Did he?

Refusing to dwell on that, she settled for a mild jab. Her words felt unpolished in relation to his, though they carried the glow of well-meaning humor. "You say neat things. It's too bad you're so weird."

Both of their youth. Both of their insanity. He squeezed her, and she decided that she really had lost her mind. Especially when she pulled back to better see his amusement, when she poked a finger at his chest with a half-request, half-demand. "Say something else."

Not even fifteen years old, yet had stepped willingly into the arms of a monster, and now remained for something as simple as mental stimulation.

If she asked him questions, made him think, then the increasingly sexual undertones of his advances were put mostly aside. She could handle that, even if for the first while he did just try to disturb her.

He succeeded as she turned around at her door, asking her question after she'd found that he'd followed her home again. "Do you think that there's something in some people that makes them inherently not good?"

"I think it's hard for _some of us_ to control certain aspects of our personalities." He watched her take in the implications of his statement, then smirked before continuing. "As a whole, though? People are the same. They're fearful, stupid, near-worthless beings that exist for one reason only."

"What's that?"

"To die."

She might have been disturbed, but she was undaunted. She tried again the next time she saw him, when he moved in close enough for his presence to be disquieting, while her awareness of his warmth made her skin prickle. "Why do you think we're so averse to the idea of death? Because we don't understand it?"

His fingertips steadily brushed along the back of her arm as he considered before answering. "Because people are greedy. It's not so much about the person lost as it is about them. It's just a bigger version of a child losing a favorite toy. For those of us with nothing to lose, it doesn't mean as much."

"Do you really think so?"

"Give me a reason not to."

"You won't kill me."

His touch left her arm, began gliding over her back. "I might change my mind."

"I don't believe you."

Eventually he came up with questions of his own. She'd missed his meeting with the Hokage, but assumed that the woman had made good on her threat to invite the Sand ninja to visit on her fifteenth birthday when he started talking. "What do you think the real purpose of celebrating someone's birthday is?"

She shrugged. "An excuse to have a party?"

"Or simply confirmation that the person has survived for a given period of time?"

"I like my reason better."

"You would."

But the corner of his mouth twitched, once, and she wondered if her birthday entertainment would consist of keeping track of him. She would definitely have a talk with Tsunade about certain boundaries better left uncrossed.

Talking about such little things wasn't what Tsunade was concerned with, though. One afternoon, while halfway through her third bottle of sake, the Fifth counted the parallels between herself and Sakura, between their former teammates. After the first few minutes, what Sakura first saw as alcohol-induced paranoia had taken on a more disturbing feel than the half-threats of her caustic companion.

"Do you think we should look at the past as a sort of prediction of the future, that we should apply its patterns to our lives as an indication of what will come?" She was sitting on a bench when she said this, hands busy shredding an unfortunate leaf down to its skeleton. It was two weeks after the fact, but she was still going over the parallels. Naruto and Jiraiya, with the loudness, the techniques, the perversion and the summonings. Herself and Tsunade, with the affinity for precise chakra control and healing, with the unwanted affections of the loud, perverted, toad-summoning men in their lives. And Sasuke . . .

Her observer's features showed vaguely aggravated curiosity, but he didn't approach, didn't move from where he stood in front of her. "That's stupid. The past may determine what we are, may influence how we get to a certain point in our lives—but our futures, our decisions are ours alone."

The decision would have been Sasuke's. She didn't want to think about that, about his willingness to abandon everything, abandon her, in search of . . .

"But if the parallels are so much," she tried, hoping that Gaara didn't notice how her face twisted and mistake the expression for something else.

"If events only ran in a continuous loop, as such, you would have been dead long ago for your very proximity to me." He shifted, gave her his best glare. "Finding a pattern to the world is fine and good, but expecting it to hold is ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Patterns form and stand only to break."

It had been what she needed to hear, even though he didn't realize it. Her telling him that he was heartening, inspirational, would only confuse him, prompt a scowl and wrinkling of the skin between his eyes. She did it anyway, then smiled at the face she knew he'd make.

"What?" he snarled. "You think I'm amusing?"

"I think you're getting predictable."

Watching him stalk off, she decided that she had to be in trouble.

●●●

Nakamura Naoki, the younger of two feudal lords signing a border treaty, required Sakura and a team of genin to act as bodyguards. It was odd leading a team composed of ninjas older than she, even if she did outrank them. It was even stranger when one of them, a gangly boy with dark spiky hair, started to make a point of smiling at her every time she looked at him.

It wasn't as stressful as what she was used to, but she still drove the team hard enough that they reached their destination early.

The time spent waiting for the other party to arrive was used to get to know Naoki himself, to engage in some minor informational gathering. Formality was eventually tossed out of the picture as she learned about the man's proclivity towards finding even the most mild of jokes hilarious. His eventual gleeful chattering about the humor and wonder of youth made her wonder if he could be distantly related to Gai.

Her admirer continued smiling at her.

Another member of her team cleared their throat and pointed. The other lord had arrived, but wasn't paying attention to them. His advisor and ninja team weren't really paying attention to them, either. Yet it seemed reasonable. Having Gaara around in that obvious of a bad mood had made her watch him with the same type of distrust.

His poor charge had to have known exactly what it was he'd hired, but was still obviously unprepared to deal with the consequences.

One of her genin spoke up quietly. "Hey, is he the one that . . ."

It didn't matter what the rest of the question was. "Yeah. He is."

But she still pushed by the Sand ninja on her way to the setup in the garden, feeling him tense up and hold his place for just long enough to show that he only moved because he wanted to.

Fixated, Tsunade had said. Gaara smoothly shifted away from angry to intent, watching her over the backs of paper-shuffling advisors until she excused herself from the immediate proceedings to kneel at the edge of the garden's koi pond. She didn't have to look to know that he followed.

A behemoth of a hikariutsuri swam up to her, nibbled curiously at the fingers she dangled in the water. The fish was docile enough for her to carefully run a hand over its calico side. "Someone must love him very much," she murmured.

The voice came from right behind her. "He's bright. It's always bright things that are seen as the most beautiful."

Sakura stood and turned, moving away from the water's edge while wiping her hand on the side of her dress and wondering what had prompted his sudden fixation on colors. "Not _all_ bright things, and not always."

"Yet most beautiful things are bright, and loved." He stepped in, expression held at neutral though his voice was tight, harsh. "The songbirds in the markets. They're bright. They're loved."

"The songbirds are _caged,"_ she tried.

"But they are _loved,"_ he insisted.

The implications of such insistence, of having such a discussion with him, were both beyond what she was willing to consider. "Given the choice of the open sky or a cage and an owner whose love may involve forgetting to feed them, which do you think they would choose?"

"Given the choice, some will return."

"Because of familiarity. What they know is easier to deal with."

He reached up, fingertips just brushing a stray strand of her hair. Hyperaware of him even though she couldn't feel the light touch, she held her breath as he replied. "But isn't that love?"

So tense. So controlled.

She shook her head, then stopped as the movement brought his hand into contact with her cheek. "Bright or familiar, it's not that easy."

"People seem intent on not becoming familiar with death. The ravens, the vultures, the black birds that feed on death—they're not bright. They're not familiar. They are not loved."

"Not everything is decided by its color, or even how well people know it. Ability, personality . . ." The hand she gestured with hovered in the air momentarily, then came to rest against his side. "Things like that can draw others in even more than appearance."

"But think of how such excellence is described. Shining. Bright."

Totally under his guard. And he was completely under hers. No good could come of this. She was going up against him in the way she had most wanted to avoid, but couldn't stop herself.

"Grace," she breathed.

His palm settled against her cheek, fingers in her hair. "Grace?"

"Grace is beauty. And even if it's not bright, no one will deny the grace of a born hunter."

He licked his lips, and all of her attention was suddenly riveted on his mouth.

"They may not deny it, but what happens when they're still afraid?"

Did he lean in the slightest bit? Was the hand against her cheek shifting to hold her in place?

She'd gone too far.

Fascinated, terrified, she watched him carefully enunciate his next words. "Does it make them human? Or does it make them prey?"

If he did it she'd run. If he did it she'd run. She didn't care if he chased her down, she didn't care if he stood and laughed, she didn't care if he hated or mocked her forever, she'd take off, she'd get as far away from him as possible and keep that distance between them because she'd meant to save her first kiss for Sasuke and she'd hoped that things would work out but he'd run, he'd bolted, he'd disappeared and left her neck-deep in mind games with an insane, possessed, bloodthirsty _wreck_ of a human that just happened to be looking at her like she was something new, something intriguing, something . . . special?

He was definitely leaning in.

She'd go into the pond before she let him, she decided. She'd make friends with her fish again and stay there until she was covered in algae and sure he'd leave her alone.

But she didn't pull away, opting instead to tremblingly watch his careful, inexorable advance.

So close. So dangerous.

They both jumped at Naoki's whoop. "Ha! Love conquers all, even him!"

Love?

She might feel sick to her stomach.

The hand against her cheek tilted her face up, making her meet his eyes. "We _must_ continue this conversation."

Her team watched her with horror as she approached the table again. Her admirer no longer had a smile for her. "Sakura, _him!_"

She shrugged, looked away. She was in deeper trouble than she even wanted to think about.


	5. 5

(Music: BT & Tori Amos—Light Speed (Hybrid mix) v. Five Pointe O—The Infinity)

* * *

The more she thought about it, the more she pieced together events, quips, and possible meanings, the more distraught she became.

Radiating disinterest, Gaara stood on his own, waiting silently as his charge accepted an invitation to a ceremonial meal. There were implications to this, also. Eating together was the unspoken promise that the two lords weren't going to try to kill each other. To complicate things that much further, guest accommodations were being discussed. That meant that everyone, her team included, was staying the night. That many more hours around him, without knowing his intentions—even if he wasn't paying the least bit of attention to her . . .

Wait.

Three grains of sand on her arm, that didn't budge when she tried to brush them away. When she looked up, he smirked at her.

He couldn't mean it. It was all some huge, horribly elaborate joke, or an attack intended solely to make her run.

But he'd still almost kissed her.

But he couldn't mean it. She hadn't _encouraged_ him!

Unless she counted all the times she'd faced him, touched him; all of the times she'd stood willingly in his arms; all of the caresses. All of the times she'd let him do the same to her.

Trouble didn't even begin to describe it.

The two of them stood watch at the meal as their teams were fed elsewhere. Thankfully, her job entailed keeping an eye on him, and the distrust she showed could be attributed to his reputation as well as their earlier encounter. For his part, the only time Gaara looked up from his position along the wall with any outward attentiveness was when she was asked to test the food for poisons. He disappeared after they were excused, though, leaving her facing the single heaping bowl of stir-fry prepared for her by her more than worried fellow Leaf ninjas.

"We talked to his team over dinner. Sakura, do you know how many people he's killed this month _alone?_"

Hearing the same thing from so many voices was starting to become annoying. "It couldn't have been too many. He doesn't smell too bad this time."

If she hid, he'd think she'd been even more unsettled than she was. If she went out to find him too soon, he'd think his advances were welcome.

She could always wait, though, until her subordinates' well-intentioned misgivings got on her nerves enough to make her pick up the bowl and stalk out. He hadn't eaten either, after all.

She found him by his silhouette, perched on a rooftop affording the best view of the grounds. He glanced up briefly when she approached, eyes skimming over her, the meal she carried, and then back to the area below.

"I'm here all night," he said, before she could ask. "There's no reason to have them break their sleep into shifts when I won't sleep anyway."

"Ah."

She sank to the rooftop to his left, setting the food between them. He watched it momentarily before speaking again. "How do you test it?"

"It was part of my training. The Fifth taught me how a few months ago."

"No, I mean _how._ I want to learn."

"You mean now?"

"Yes."

"I . . ." She blinked. "I can't teach you. I know most of the basics, but when it comes down to it I don't have any of the materials and . . . Why do you need to know _now?_"

"Because I do."

She glared at his stubbornness. He glared back.

How many people had he killed this month? Enough to shake her team, so in all likelihood more than a few. Her thumb repetitively rubbed over the sand still stuck to her arm until he noticed, his glare shifting to a toothy, joyless smile.

He was unsettling, of course, but she'd seen him worse. "Talk to me."

"When I was younger, I wasn't strong enough to properly control the demon inside me. This made me a threat to the village, so my father tried to have me killed on multitudes of occasions. The fourth attempt was when one of the ninjas on my medical team was instructed to poison me." His face twisted, forehead wrinkling as he sneered, voice shifting from flat to harsh. "By all accounts, I was unconscious for seventeen minutes. That didn't mean I stopped moving."

She cringed, but had to ask. "How bad?"

"By the time Shukaku had cleaned the poison from my system and I managed to rouse myself, I no longer had a medical team."

"And now you worry."

He was silent for a moment, then nodded. "It would be an ignoble way to die. If I must be killed, I want it to be by someone stronger than myself, not a sneaky weakling with the ability to reach my meal when it's out of my sight."

"That's why you didn't eat."

"I'm away from Sand, with unimportant people. If I were to lose control here, no one of any consequence would be destroyed. It would be the perfect opportunity."

Had he intended to count her among the unimportant, or was he relaying what he saw as Sand's collective opinion? Or was that yet another jab at her ego?

His features smoothed again, voice quiet yet no less commanding. "If you want me to eat, test it."

The technique used to seek out anything unusual in the meal was simple, complicated only by his focus on her.

"It's clean."

"You eat it, first."

The obedience with which she took a bite and calmness with which she handed him a pair of chopsticks earned her a suspicious glare, but he picked out a piece of meat anyway.

"Why did you come up here?"

She waited until the food was in his mouth before she responded. "I was thinking about what you said earlier. About bright things, and their opposite."

He made a small noise and swallowed before answering. "Do you know when the last time was that someone willingly approached me just to talk?"

"No."

"Neither do I."

She stopped moving, a random vegetable halfway to her mouth. "That's not a fair question."

Gaara's lips twitched. "Will yours be?"

"Of course." Another bite, another moment contemplating of the strangeness of their quiet sharing. She wouldn't ask him about that yet. "When we're young, we're afraid of the dark. Sometimes when we're older, also. Why do you think that is?"

The twitch of his lips turned into an actual, albeit slight, smile. "Good one."

By the time half of the bowl was done, he seemed to have found a satisfactory answer. "Darkness limits our awareness, which is threatening. When we can't control a threat, we become afraid."

"When we're older?"

"Some people never get over the fear of lack of control."

That had been his entire life, though, so it seemed reasonable. Sakura nodded, then offered her opinion. "I think that when we're older, what we're afraid of is not so much the limit on our awareness as much as it is being alone."

Silence.

She may have hit a nerve. "Is that why you haven't really tried to scare me away yet tonight?"

"Maybe I don't mind having you around."

Because he'd said he appreciated her touch. Because he hadn't denied it when she had said that he was getting used to her. Because he'd said that he thought familiarity was love.

She probably should have stayed inside.

When he was calm, she decided, he wasn't too disconcerting to look at. There was something familiar about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on, though. "This fear of being alone, then, is overarching. It's universal."

"It's built into us to save those that can't stand on their own, to encourage us to get close enough to another to continue the species." He stopped detachedly scanning the grounds as he spoke, his attention shifting to her and sharpening to a fierce intensity, and she suddenly knew who he reminded her of. Even if she'd never seen Sasuke focus on her the same way—especially in something as mundane as conversation—the crossover from one state to the next was the same.

"I think it's more than that." She examined the remains of the bowl's contents, then pushed it towards him. "Animals survive perfectly well without human concepts of love, of how to interact. But we're better than that."

"Are we, or do we just think we are?"

"Our thinking about it alone means something."

"But to whom? Consider it this way: We're born, we eat, we fight, we breed, we die. How is that any different from an animal?"

"Because we feel. We think, we converse. We argue, and—" She smiled. "I'd go as far as to say that we enjoy it."

Her attempt at humor didn't faze him. He ignored the bowl, his unblinking stare daring her to challenge him. "Emotion is weakness."

"Emotion is human."

"And what's so wonderful about being human?"

For a moment she couldn't think of anything he wouldn't immediately be able to refute. Taking her silence as concession of defeat, he stood. "I'll be back after I'm done checking the rest of the area."

"All right. But . . ." She stood also, stepped in. Once her arms were around him, she decided he didn't smell too bad after all. "Even though you despise the weakness of it, if you weren't human, do you think you would enjoy this as much?"

Again, the faint smile. "I doubt it." The warmth of his body against hers was simultaneously comforting and unsettling. His voice lowered, rippled, a callused hand tilting her face towards his. "We have unfinished business, I believe."

This time there was no mistaking his leaning in. If she could have been sure he wasn't doing it just to upset her, things might have been different. If she couldn't have smelled the blood on him, she might have let him. But when he nudged her cheek with his nose, lips parting with the slightest sound, she realized she couldn't.

"Don't." She inhaled, feeling the air catch in her throat at his proximity. "Don't make me run."

"I'll catch you." His whisper was close enough that she could hope the brush against the corner of her mouth was still his breath.

"I want a choice in the matter." The choice turning over in her mind was one that she never would have seen herself making. Horribly, all she could think of was the time she'd almost kissed Sasuke. Had she been this afraid then?

What was she really afraid of?

Though he wasn't holding her in place, she still couldn't move away.

What about him, though? Shouldn't he be showing a little more emotion if he was actually serious about starting something? Or was this really just an incredibly intricate plan to drive her into running?

He pulled back to smirk at her before responding. "As long as you come to a decision that will be agreeable to both of us."

His releasing her was sweet relief, bitter disappointment. She definitely had to sit down soon and figure out when this had switched from a game to deadly, terrible seriousness, figure out how he had even managed to get her to consider him in that way.

The pottery by her foot offered her an opportunity to retreat. "I'll take the bowl in."

"Are you afraid of me?"

The twisted amusement on his face, the smugness of his question solidified things. He was only out to upset her. He was Gaara. Gaara didn't _love._ Gaara didn't kiss people. Gaara was only happy when he was fighting, whether it was a physical battle or their shifting dynamic, his gleeful drive for her submission.

He'd somehow gotten her to consider him that way, she'd thought, and she might know why.

If he'd wanted her to run, he would have kissed her. He didn't want her to run. He wanted her to give in.

She would _not_ end up under him.

"I'm not afraid of you as much as what you're capable of."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"I don't think so." She looked away, then back to him. "You talk to me. You make me think. I like that." Stooping to pick up the bowl, she came to a decision. She could accept the dance he offered as long as she got a chance to lead as well. "I'll be back in a little bit."

The way Sakura's team suddenly became quiet as she entered the room told her volumes about the topic of their discussion, but she didn't feel like making an issue of it. "He's out there for the rest of the night. I'll take first shift. You three decide on what order you go."

"But . . ." Her once-admirer seemed to be the group's mouthpiece. "Isn't he—"

It really was a pity that they managed to annoy her as much as they did. "Stop worrying about the horror stories his team told you and listen to me. He's _not that bad._ Unless you purposefully draw attention to yourself, you'll be below his notice and he'll leave you alone." She shook her head. "Believe me, I know."

"But what if he—"

"Just be nice to him. He'll let you know if you're annoying him, but if he decides he wants you dead, he's not going to warn the rest of us."

"So he's at least honest about what he's thinking?"

"Yes."

Something about the veraciousness of her response bothered her. It was true that she'd never seen Gaara try to be anything less than outright when dealing with her, or with anyone else that she knew of. But that didn't mean that he couldn't—or wouldn't—change up in order to meet his own goals.

Right?

Once outside again, she stopped walking the second she knew he was following her. "I'm not playing cat and mouse with you."

She knew what she was playing, though. She could accept the bait he offered, the conversations, but would steadfastly refuse to take the hook.

The amusement was back in his voice. "You came out here for the pleasure of my company, then?"

Terrible, awful, egotistical monster.

"Who said your company is pleasant?"

He stepped around her, then continued circling, his pace slow, measured, close enough for their clothing to brush, watching her as she turned to keep him in sight. "I'm sure the people I came here with wouldn't. But you said that you enjoy this."

"I don't enjoy watching you walk in circles."

"You enjoy talking to me."

Cold-hearted, vicious walking headache.

She reached out, her hand against his side stopping his forward momentum. "Only when you give me a reason to."

"And I'm apparently adept at that. All I have to do is make you think." Fingertips traced over her elbow and up her arm. Green eyes focused on her face, his carefully controlled expression all but shouting that he was planning something. "How long will you stay out here with me?"

Lonely.

"It depends. Can you make it worth my while?"

His lips twitched. "What do you think living is the most like? Like being a stone at the bottom of a moving stream, or like looking up to watch snow fall?"

"You're horrible," she said, but spoiled the effect by smiling.

"I know."


	6. 6

Touching down.  
Reflekt w. Deline Bass—Need to Feel Loved (Thrillseekers mix) v. Apartment 26—Death

* * *

Staggering back to her bed later that night, she'd only seen the miry ground he'd dragged her onto, had thought that the biggest problems arising from that span of hours would be thwarted by keeping on her toes enough to meet his offhanded propositions with insults. She was wrong.

In less than a week, it had felt entirely too much like people had started looking at her differently. But it wasn't because of that, because of Lee's confusion or Tsunade's knowing grin, that she was suddenly less than certain around him.

He hadn't shown up for her birthday, hadn't shown up at all until two weeks after the fact, as distant as usual until she'd prodded him for it. "You just don't want to admit to Sand that you can interact with people without killing them. You're afraid they'll expect you to be calmer."

He'd returned with his own attack. "You just want me around. And for what? It's just another day."

"It marks my surviving another year, you said."

"Why would I care?"

She'd known exactly why he would care, because she knew where he was coming from as well as he did. If she was gone, where would that leave him?

Sakura had stepped in, had watched his face until his glare softened. "Because if I don't survive, then you're alone again."

His expression had faltered, and she'd smiled carefully, gently. "Not to mention, I don't know who else would really be able to put up with you."

While stepping away to let him think that through unscrutinized, she'd noticed Kakashi watching them. At the slight gesture, she had followed the jounin away.

"He's manipulative," Kakashi'd said, his expression not that of an idle gossiper but of a worried teacher. "I don't know if he's changed. I don't know if he _can_ change. I do know what I saw him do to Sasuke a few years ago, though. He knows how to push people."

But she'd known that.

It wasn't because of that that she was now avoiding the Sand ninja, had avoided him the last time he had come to Leaf. It had nothing to do with the fact that she hadn't actually spoken to him for more than a month, that she now watched him from the relative sanctuary of a shaded doorway rather than approach.

Still some distance from her, Gaara turned in the street, unobtrusively searching. He'd seen her on his first pass through. He knew she was in the area. The way his expression hardened said that he was getting annoyed.

She could go out and meet him. She could stay back and see if he would pass her.

"What'd he do?" she'd asked her former instructor. "How did he push him?"

Knowing your enemy, Tsunade had called it.

"After the insults, and calling on his memories of Itachi . . . He told Sasuke that he was just like him."

Just like him.

That was the part she was having problems with.

She could step a little further into the light and watch him, considering his features, his attitude, everything she knew about him.

Cold.

Like Sasuke.

Arrogant.

Like Sasuke.

Power-hungry.

Just like Sasuke.

When he finally saw her, he stopped. She counted the seconds, watched him weigh his decisions. If he approached immediately, she would be the one in control. If he stood and waited, nothing would happen.

Bloodthirsty.

Like Sasuke.

Cruel.

Like Sasuke.

Meeting midway was acceptable. She moved forward, her eyes catching his before she headed down the street. He fell into step beside her.

"What is it about power that breaks people?" She didn't look at him as she spoke.

"Breaks?"

"Drives them crazy. Recreates them, warps them into a puppet of the person they were before." She took a deep breath. "Makes them abandon everything."

"Fear of pain."

He didn't elaborate, choosing to watch the ground in front of them as he walked. If he was thinking about something else, he didn't put the thought to words.

But he was. She knew he was.

Genius, Kankurou had called him.

Just like Sasuke.

"Wouldn't leaving everything behind be painful?"

"Fear of pain can be a sharper goad than the pain itself."

"How so? What pain?"

He finally looked up, but not at her. "The pain of being beaten. The pain of being rejected, passed over, ignored for being weak. For some, the concept of mortality is painful, and to be feared."

"Power doesn't make you immortal." Even if Orochimaru tried.

"It can make you forget, though."

Silently, she considered. Sasuke had fought Orochimaru's seal, his influence, until being beaten by first Gaara, then Itachi. The defeats had shaken him.

Power.

The look on Sasuke's face when he dislocated the Sound ninja's shoulders during their chuunin exam.

The look on Gaara's face when he rose up behind Lee during their preliminary match, intent on the kill.

The same.

"Do you think, then, that it's the fear of weakness that makes people seek power, or the love of power that makes people fear weakness?"

"I think . . ." He trailed off, then smiled, considering. After a moment, he started up again. "I think that we're born without a drive for either. Then we learn pain, hunger. Need. We don't want to be exposed to those feelings. From that, we learn fear."

"So because it's not pleasant, we dislike it, and this dislike may ultimately turn to a form of fear."

"And having power keeps fear at bay."

"Wouldn't having power create more fear, that the power may be taken away? That one day, someone stronger will come along to take you down?"

"Would you rather be weak, and know that many can beat you, and live in fear of multitudes, or be strong, and know that few can beat you, and keep a close eye on those few?"

"I'd rather not be the type of person that has to fear being attacked constantly, for whatever reason."

An unreadable expression shifted across his features. "Sometimes trouble seeks you out."

In front of her home was usually where they broke, where one offered the other a near-ceremonial insult and they separated for however long it took him to get another messenger mission. She wasn't done, though.

She spoke carefully, watching his face as if to remind herself that she was talking to him and not another, to a slightly taller person with black hair, dark eyes, and the same knowing, quiet smirk. "Would you like to come in for a little while? To finish our discussion?"

The smirk deepened as he brushed past her and through the partially opened door.

No one else was home yet, or would be for a while, but she wouldn't tell him that. Such a statement would surely complicate things, drastically change the distance between them. Once inside, he picked a wall to lean against that afforded him the best angle to watch her start heating water for tea, his patently bored expression obviously meaning that he expected her to start the conversation. Stubbornly, she made him wait until the water started to boil before she chose to speak.

"So power, by nature, is corrupting."

He shook his head. "Power is power. It's people that are corrupt."

"Not everyone with power is corrupt."

"Most are."

"Are you including yourself among them?"

His lips curved into a faint, bitter smile. "Of course."

It would only be a few minutes for the tea to steep, and she might know her next offensive move. "So you believe that the only way to truly know what a person is like is to give them power?"

"I believe that having power brings out what is truly in a person."

"Given all of your chances to do so, you haven't killed me. What does that say about you?"

The smile widened, became mocking. "Many things."

She took her time picking out their cups, pretended she hadn't heard all of the insinuations below that short statement. "I think that people want what's for the best, that they all want good things to happen. It's when they want good things to happen to other people as well, and act on those wishes instead of selfish ones, that they're actually good."

"Other people are worthless, pitiful—"

"Other people are needed, you've said so yourself—"

"You can't trust them. They always turn on you. _Always._" His tension, the vehemence behind the statement, said that she had gotten close to another nerve.

"Not always."

"What did Sasuke do, then?"

She bit her lip, flinched slightly.

Ruthless.

Like Sasuke.

He accepted the cup she handed him and tasted it before the way she watched him required his attention. "What?"

"You don't know what I could have put in that." She set her untouched cup down. "I could have killed you."

"You wouldn't."

"Why not? How do you know I won't decide that you deserve to die, for everything you've done, everything you say? Everything you're capable of?"

He straightened, snorted softly, defiantly raised the cup to his lips again before setting it beside hers and reaching for her. "Because this means something to you."

Not Sasuke.

She moved closer, barely brushing against him as his hands settled at her waist. The amusement on his face was familiar, also. She'd seen it on Sasuke's, right before the last time he'd told her that she was annoying.

She couldn't help herself. "Does it mean something to you?"

"Do you want it to?" Amusement twisted into malice. "Even though you know what I am, do you want me to love you?"

Fastidiously, painstakingly, she brushed his hair away from the kanji on his forehead. "You don't even know what love is. Even with this."

An arm wrapped around her, leaving his other hand free to skim against her face. "Love is pain. To feel love is weakness."

"It's not." Even though the strength of her emotion, every hopeful moment she'd had, had done nothing to save her from the agony she felt when faced with Sasuke's retreating back.

"It isn't a storybook fantasy. People only want to be loved to satisfy their egos, because of their own personal greed. If enough people love you, you're justified in doing almost anything. They back you. They follow you. They say they understand."

This wasn't him trying to push her. This was personal. "Who?"

"Sand, following my _father._"

"But that's not love. Love isn't _supposed _to—"

"That. The ideal is what makes it work that way. People feed you your ideal and then use it, your perfect picture of love, to get close enough to hurt you. They hurt you, and then—"

Sasuke.

"They leave," she finished. Her chest tightened, her lower lip trembled. "And then they leave you."

"And then you're _alone._"

"No matter what they told you," she agreed. "No matter even if there's people all around you, because they've _left _and . . ."

It was ridiculous to cling onto him as both her comfort and her misery. But wasn't that what he wanted? Wasn't he sick enough to pull her in both directions at once, until the only choice left to her was to reach for him?

When she blinked, two tears slid down her cheeks. One was caught by his fingertips, smeared slightly—or was it an attempt to wipe it away?

Eyes widening, breath speeding up, he held up his dampened fingers between them as her tears continued to roll down her face.

Not Sasuke. Sasuke wouldn't be excited by her pain.

Instead, he'd been amused by it.

Sakura closed her eyes, shook her head. Sadistic. Both of them.

The hand fisting in her hair prevented her from pressing her face against his shoulder. She tried to pull free, but winced as his grip tightened.

"I didn't do this." His voice was rough.

"No." She sniffed, shook. "I did it to myself."

With her eyes still closed, the only indication of his proximity was the feel of his rapid breath on her face. "Why would you want to do that?"

Not Sasuke. Not Sasuke. Twice as hard as Sasuke.

She was _not_ considering.

She shook her head again, mouth twisting bitterly. "Maybe because I wanted to break your theory that we try to avoid pain. What of those of us that seek it out, that deliberately think of things we know will hurt us? What does that make us?"

His warm exhalation passed over her lips and settled against the other side of her face, the hand in her hair loosening, then caressing the back of her neck. "Human." His arm around her clenched unexpectedly, the taut muscles of his back shuddering gently under her hands as something warm and moist delicately brushed against her skin.

Tongue.

He was licking her tears off of her face.

Sasuke never would have—

She didn't know that he wouldn't have. She'd probably never know if he wouldn't have.

Gaara's lips pressed against her cheek briefly, awkwardly, as if he was unsure of what to do with them. But he had no reason to know what to do with them, did he?

Not Sasuke.

A teardrop made it to just above the corner of her mouth before he caught it, first replacing its wetness with that of his saliva, then with another, steadier kiss.

If she let him kiss her, actually, truly kiss her, she'd be giving in. He'd enjoy that too much. _She'd_ enjoy it too much.

"What are you afraid of?" he whispered.

"I'm afraid of you being right."

Ten times crueler than Sasuke.

Dampened by her tears, his lips pressed against the corner of her left eye. He pulled back only enough to give himself room to speak, his voice harsh. "Your pain . . . tastes sweet."

Twenty—no, fifty times more depraved.

She wasn't crying anymore, was in fact panting as fervently as he was, but he seemed intent on cleaning the rest of her face anyway and she couldn't think of any good reason to make him stop.

He was concentrating on her jawline, his actions half-tastes, half-kisses, when she tilted her head back to bring his attention to the drops that had made it to her chin. Once those were gone, though, all pretenses fell away. She knew there was no longer a trace of salinity on the skin there as well as she knew that no tears had reached the other areas of her throat that he moved to, his open mouth demandingly thorough.

Not Sasuke.

A hundred times better than Sasuke.

She threaded her fingers into his hair, whispering wordless encouragement as his exhalations became vocalizations, as he growled against her skin with every breath. Even if he was a little too harsh, the force of his affections causing the slightest sting against her pulse points, she wasn't afraid. He wouldn't hurt her. For all of his talk about fear and pain and the worthlessness of emotion, her touch and her acceptance still meant something to him.

Manipulative, Kakashi had said. But she'd known that. She'd seen him in action. She'd unknowingly watched him slowly but surely drive her to this point, to the point where she needed him almost as much as he needed her.

Standing by and letting him was submitting. Allowing him to make all the first moves, allowing him to do whatever he wanted . . . She still wouldn't submit.

But meeting midway was acceptable.

She rubbed her cheek against his, pressed dry lips against him. Her second kiss was placed closer to his mouth. His breathing hitched when he realized what she was doing, but immediately picked up again, as torrid as before.

Not Sasuke.

Idly, then desperately, she wondered how he'd taste.

She pulled back completely to see his face before she took the step, before she completed their relationship's crossover from a mental battlefield to something more physical, more driven, more—

Not Sasuke.

Demon.

His bloodshot green eyes were entirely too wide, mouth open with abhorrent elation, bared teeth gleaming, his outward appearance shocking her enough to wrench her stomach, give her pause, enough to give him the time to ask his favorite question.

"Are you afraid of me?"

"I'm afraid of . . ." She trailed off. Afraid of how he was looking at her. Afraid of what he was capable of. Afraid she had almost made a terrible mistake.

The way his forehead wrinkled as his contempt became obvious told her that admitting fear had been a mistake in and of itself.

"Well?" His grip tightened until all she could do was gasp out an honest reply.

"I'm afraid of what you want from me."

"What I want . . ." The hand on her face was gentle, his expression smoothing though his eyes were still feral. "What I want? You _should_ be afraid." His tone followed, becoming soft, persuasive, that much more disquieting. "I want to break you apart, break you open, because . . . Because I know you'd be that much warmer on the inside. And I want that. I want to feel it."

Her shaking degenerated into outright shuddering, the skin he was caressing crawling as she twisted away from his touch.

"If I do that, though," he continued, "Then everything here will end. And I don't want that. But there is . . . a way to make it work, a way to be sure that you survive this."

She felt the direction his musings were taking and shook her head in denial, soundlessly begging him to not say what she knew he would.

"I want to be in you."

"No." Her voice cracked as she spoke. She tried again even as she started crying, working to force out the words that might stop him from carrying out any of his intentions through the tears he'd promised to bring her so long before. "Not like this. Not with threats."

He wiped a tear away with his thumb, then brought it to his lips.

Sadist.

Horrible.

She pushed at him, hands against his chest, trying to hold her panic down. "Let me go."

If she ran, he'd said, he'd catch her. But she'd try anyway.

He reached out for her face again. "Let me." And then, even worse: "Please."

Sand swirled around her ankles, started climbing her legs. Terrified, she snapped at him. "Please, Gaara, _control yourself!_"

He froze, eyes widening, not attempting to hold her back when she pulled free of him. The name he spoke wasn't hers.

Sakura backed away, shaking violently, terrified that she'd collapse in front of him. "Get out."

His mouth opened as his hands reached out for her, but she retreated further.

Under his guard. She'd hurt him.

She didn't care.

"_Get out!"_

No sooner had the door closed behind him was she at the nearest sink, scrubbing her face and throat frantically.

He was a freak, a monstrosity, an abomination. She hated him. Not herself for freezing up at his excitement, his appearance, when she'd seen him so much worse so many times before. Not herself for panicking at the spelling out of the same suggestion he'd been making for so long now. Him.

She hadn't enjoyed it. She hadn't.

She hadn't wanted him.

It wasn't until her sobs had subsided and she could breathe steadily again that she allowed herself to wonder, to repeat his last word.

"Yashamaru."


	7. 7

(Music: Kittie—Red Flag v. Praga Khan—City of a Thousand Sins)

* * *

He'd said that the world was chaos, that patterns in history's events were only coincidental. However, that didn't mean they hadn't regressed to the beginning, and that she once again had every reason to believe that he'd finally snap and kill her.

It was plausible, though. His response to an unpleasant stimulus was almost invariably to destroy its source. She was no longer as sure that a treaty would protect her. Two days after he'd left her—and only one after Tsunade had smirkingly noted the faint marks he'd left on her throat—he was back. The attack she half-expected didn't follow, though. Instead he headed her off on her way to meet the Fifth, sneering, far too tense, his advance narrowing her options down to either running or facing him.

She still wouldn't run. Even if his rage was so blatantly evident that every self-preservation instinct in her demanded she get as far away as possible as quickly as she could, she still wouldn't run.

Eyes wild, he snapped his question before she had even stopped moving. "What good is all of your talk about emotion and caring and humanity _if you still deny me?"_

Meeting him anger with anger could only prove disastrous. One of the many questions that had occupied her spare waking moments slipped free. "What if I hadn't?" Sakura paused, watching his expression closely. "What if I had let you? And then what if I had hated you for pushing me into something I wasn't ready for? Then what?"

She still might have imagined the slightest flicker across his features, of something that wasn't hate or arrogance.

"Then what?" he hissed in return.

"Then this would be over. You said you didn't want that."

She was starting to box him in, but it still wasn't in his nature to retreat. "Why would I want to continue, to associate myself with someone as pitifully weak as you?"

"This made you happy, you said. You said you enjoyed it."

"It's a distraction, a way to bide my time."

Explanations meant that he was being forced into a sort of retreat after all.

She bit her lip. "If that was all for you, you wouldn't have stopped." With the words came realization. With all of his obsessions about power, with his rage, his violence, he was more than capable of forcing himself on her. The fact that he hadn't was a measure of his . . . Attachment? Respect? Addiction? Or possibly just of her incredible luck? "You said 'please.'" She swallowed hard with horror, certainty. "You wanted me to be willing."

"Willing? I want you to _enjoy_ it." His best weapon had apparently so far been untouched. Gaara sneered at her, maintaining the distance between them as his voice dropped to a lover's whisper. "And you did."

She couldn't deny it, and now had entirely too much to think about to even attempt to do such. Suddenly, she wasn't as certain that the act would have been less making love to him and more just surviving him.

"But," he continued, expression shifting back to terribly wrathful, "You're _still afraid of me._"

"After what you said—" The implications of everything he was saying gave her a hundred different reasons to run, a hundred different reasons to put an end to things right then and there. He had wanted to kiss her. He had wanted her to enjoy it. He had wanted to touch her. He had wanted her to enjoy it. He had wanted more than submission, more than power over her. He had wanted her to . . . "You didn't want me to enjoy anything! You threatened my life if I didn't!"

"That? Don't you pay attention? I said that I _wouldn't! _I said I want you alive!"

Wanted her. The levels of adrenaline pouring through her, inducing massive shaking in her legs and arms, said that if she bolted now, it would take him a few seconds to catch up.

But . . . The shaking. Not just hers, _his._ He hadn't moved in on her smoothly, arrogantly. He'd shook, the same as he had in the beginning, when he was unused to her touch. The spasms of his muscles said that he'd been . . . Nervous? Afraid? Afraid of what?

Rejection. Afraid of her turning him away.

To cover her cringe, to not let him squeeze out of things so easily, she attacked again. "You said you weren't sure I'd survive any other way!"

"Don't you understand? This is what I am. This is what I was _made for. I am a monster._"

How many times had he heard that as an accusation before adopting it as his personal aphorism?

"But how would that have made me immune to _anything?_" Did he actually think that his words, no matter the intentions, wouldn't have caused such an adverse reaction? Was he even thinking when he'd started talking? Or was he trying to protect her from himself?

"We'll never find out, will we?" Which meant that he didn't know. As if to cover, he flung out another accusation. "You're afraid of me. You're afraid to _look at me._"

His emphasis on the last few words told her what had set him off, gave her deeper insight into what he was upset about, suddenly made her sure that she was a horrible, shallow, incredibly callous person. Sakura would have kissed him if he had been calm, in all likelihood would have met his need with her own without a second thought until the next time his expression shifted and she was reminded again that his grip on his sanity was tenuous at best. Afraid to look at him. She'd dealt an incredible blow to his ego and hadn't even realized it.

When she reached out in a motion that may have been intended to either gesture or touch, he snarled. Her trust in him at the moment was measured by how she immediately froze.

"Only to control," he hissed. "Only for your own purposes. And when you're finally faced with me"—with his rage, his hate, the clench of his raising hands and the grotesque permutation of his features that marked either his madness or his transition to his demon's form—"You're afraid. You run. And if you run, you're _just like everyone else._"

Sakura set her feet, sure that what she was doing was one of the stupidest things she'd ever done. But she had to. Cowering would in all likelihood only make him see her as a potential victim. Submitting, accepting his accusations, would only tell him what to do to trample her the next time they clashed. Facing him was what had set her apart from the others, would hopefully keep him placated enough that he wouldn't completely destroy her. But he wasn't touching her. Through everything, though he had reached out part of the way towards her, though his insanity was at the surface, he refused to touch her.

That meant that, on some level, he understood what was going on and was controlling his actions. It meant he knew that if he attacked her, then whatever fragile thing it was they had built between them would be destroyed.

This knowledge meant she could relax the tiniest bit, could take a deep breath before forcing her tone to soft and engaging him again. "You don't know how to do anything but fight, do you?"

He blinked, startled, then grimaced. "You know that's not true."

"It's the most comfortable for you, though. It's what you know. It's familiar."

"That doesn't mean anything." Thankfully, though, his hands were lowering, expression settling. She'd apparently managed to defuse him.

Aside from that, it seemed they were at a standstill.

"I have to get to the Fifth's," she offered.

His sudden, toothy smile made her sure that there was something to worry about. "Yes, you do."

"Are you on your way out?"

"Not just yet." The smile got wider as his tone dropped to sinister. "I have business to take care of first."

"What?"

"Go ask the Hokage."

He made no apparent move to follow her as she left, horror warring with disbelief. He couldn't mean what she thought he did. Once again she stormed, shaking, through the door to Tsunade's office. "What's going on?"

Thankfully, the woman was never one to mince words. "He's sticking around for a little while."

Sakura stuttered, finally settling on one word. "Why?"

"The Kazekage's message essentially said he's proven problematic, to the degree that they don't want him around." Tsunade sighed. "So they sent him here, hoping he'll stabilize in the time it takes him to get back."

"On a fake messenger mission?"

"It's a real messenger mission. It's been one every time. This time, though, the reason is a little more blatant than the recipe exchange we were doing earlier."

She choked. _"Recipe exchange?"_

"He's been here every few weeks lately. Did you really think I had that much to talk to Sand about?"

It had gotten worse. His own village didn't even want to deal with him, and now she didn't have a way to avoid it. "You sent him out there to find me?"

"I sent him to find out where you were, yes."

Which meant that she'd almost certainly been watching their interaction. "You knew."

"I guessed."

"But . . ."

"Enough stammering. His stabilizing will in all likelihood not occur until whatever problem it is between you two has been fixed."

"You're ordering me to—"

"I'm not going to _order_ you to do anything. Call it 'encouraging.'" Tsunade's slight smile took the edge off of the words, but just barely. "You didn't kill each other down there today. With a few weeks and a handful of visits you would probably work things out. I'm just giving you the time you need to accelerate that."

"But you're _'encouraging'_ it as a favor, to maintain relations! That's tantamount to an order!"

"No," Tsunade snapped. "Not for relations." She stood, then started pacing. "Have you ever noticed how many ninjas live to an old age, Sakura? And of those, how many were not taken out of commission for being seriously maimed or crippled in missions?" Tsunade stopped moving and faced her, features twisting with emotion. "Have you ever had the people you care for die in front of you, no matter how hard you've tried to save them? No, he's not the most stable individual. It's part of what he is. There's no helping it. However, barring Shukaku rising to ascendancy or a massive breakdown on his part, he's the only thing you _don't_ have to worry about. He's obsessed to the point that he'll never abandon you and he's too damned hard to kill for it to be likely that you'd have to go through what I did!"

Parallels. History repeating itself. Sakura had heard of Dan, of the incident that had left Tsunade afraid of the sight of blood, but had never actually heard her mentor speak of him before. If the Fifth saw her student as a younger version of herself, it stood as reasonable that she would try to protect her from the things she'd suffered. The patterns they saw may be forming only to break, but there was no telling when the breaking point would come.

Desperation made Sakura voice her last protest. "But you don't know what he wants!"

"All he wants . . ." Tsunade took a deep breath. "Is confirmation."

And in the basest of ways, that was what it would have been.

**ooo**

Tucking away a small list of items she needed to pick up for that day's training, Sakura closed the office door and turned around to find him leaning against the closest wall, arms folded, waiting for her.

"You were listening," she accused, but there was no heat behind the words.

He looked up, met her eyes. "I wanted to be sure it wasn't an order."

"It matters to you."

"It shouldn't. You want me to be someone else." He sneered before continuing. "You want me to be _him._"

"That's not true." Even though she knew that on some level he was right. He was too different, too harsh, too strange to match up with her ideal, her perfect concept of how things should be. And her perfect concept had always hinged and focused on one person.

Looking down was showing weakness, putting him further on the offensive.

"If he came back, would you accept him with open arms? Would you pretend that things were the same, even though he's made his decision as to where he stands? After the lines had been drawn, he chose to rise up and be counted among the enemy."

"He didn't kill Naruto."

"But he joined the one that killed the Third Hokage. Do you think he sat idle these past few years? Do you think he has some sense of _honor_ that would prevent him from doing anything that would stain him in your eyes? He fights for that quarter now. If you met him on the battlefield, would you give up, give in, and hope that his conscience would protect you? Though you fight me, would you give him whatever he wanted, be it his freedom or your life?"

"It's _different_—"

He uncoiled, hands flexing, eyes wide, and took a single, aggressive step forward. _"How is it different?"_

Letting him continue talking was exponentially raising the possibility that he would personally hunt Sasuke down before bringing her a memento of the killing as proof of his strength, his superiority. The Sand ninja would definitely have no problem with wiping the one he saw as his major competition out of existence. But though he had beaten Sasuke before, Naruto had beaten him. And Sasuke, after accepting Orochimaru's offer, had beaten Naruto. Gaara going up against Sasuke alone would not necessarily result in a repeat of their last fight—and she was afraid of any of the possible outcomes.

She may have been holding him up to an unfair ideal, but he had thoroughly mauled that ideal to the point that she questioned it, questioned herself. Once again, he'd given her far too much to think about.

When she looked up, she noted that his expression was completely blank. All of his emotional shields were up. The hand she reached out towards him was ignored. "I need time," she whispered.

"You've _had_ time."

"I need more." She bit her lip, hating herself for having to ask. "Please."

If he saw it as a victory, he gave no sign. "Why can't you decide _now?_"

It wasn't in his nature to beg, to crawl, to show weakness to an opponent, to lower himself in an attempt to garner her favor. His reaction was more to push, to manipulate, to destroy. Continuing to harass her rather than respect her request could only mean that he was getting closer and closer to the point that her words would no longer faze him.

She refused to explain herself. "I'll come find you when I'm ready."

**ooo**

On her way through the halls, she once again found that the sand stuck to her arm couldn't be rubbed off, picked away, or otherwise gotten rid of. She decided that it was fitting.

It may have only been minutes since she had left him, but she had to think fast. He'd seemed to be running at less stable than usual, and if he came to find her . . .

A nagging, quiet voice in the back of her mind reminded her that if it came down to it, all she had to do was close her eyes and hang on.

The problem with that was that he apparently wanted more than a few moments of submission. While it would prove on some level his power over her if he could convince her to accept let alone enjoy him, she was certain that they had moved beyond that stage of their relationship. He'd opened up. He'd talked to her. If it were just about power, he wouldn't have said anything that could give her an edge on him.

He'd trusted her.

If it came down to it, Sasuke had told Naruto about his quest to kill his brother long before she'd ever known Itachi as anything other than "a man."

Sakura shook her head. She refused to think of Sasuke at a time like this. However, what he had meant to her dictated that his memory would hold a place in this as well.

She stopped right outside of the door to the building, only feet away from the place where Gaara had once confronted her about giving up too easily, and concluded that it was an ironic place to try to make her decision.

She might have every reason to run. The fact that he would probably kill her rather than let her break ties completely somehow stood even with the fact that she didn't want to let him go. Greed, he'd called it, when they were talking about death. The base concept applied to this as well.

The sand falling away from her arm was the only real warning she had. A vague sense of warmth prompted her to lean back, bumping her shoulders against Gaara's chest. In return he shifted in slightly, pressing against her as one of his arms wrapped around her waist. Her not pulling away at the realization of his proximity had apparently been taken as an acceptance. His accepting the contact said volumes about the level of his addiction.

His accepting the contact said that she already had the perfect bait and hook, one that he could never refuse. Herself.

"I told you I'd come find you," she muttered.

"I was headed out. You were in my way."

As an explanation, that might have to do.

Biting her lip, she considered her major problems with him. Sakura took a deep breath as her fingers traced over his wrist, fitted themselves between his. "Is it so wrong to want something to be perfect?"

He snorted softly, the gust of air ruffling her hair. "Perfection is a myth, an impossibility."

He was insane. Even excluding the possession, too much other damage had been done too long before, and the scars were too deep for anyone to ever be able to fully repair. Hoping that he could ever be a normal person was futile. But for Sasuke to abandon Leaf for only the promise of power, knowing Orochimaru's intentions towards him . . . It was either insanity or stupidity, and Sasuke had always been hailed as a genius.

Sasuke wasn't housing a demon that would take over and consume him given the chance, of course. Instead, he was carrying a cursed seal that would overrun his body and drain him of more chakra than he was able to use—which would effectively destroy him.

"But to _want_ it. I think that—" That she was afraid of Gaara's propensity for violence, though he hadn't actually acted on any of that towards her since the fight in the forest years before. "That we try to find it. That's why we believe the people that feed us our ideals. We want that perfection."

"Seeking that ideal beyond rational thought is stupidity."

She'd been afraid of him, but she'd been afraid of Sasuke as well. When he'd first used the cursed seal during their chuunin exam and his anger hadn't been directed at her, she'd managed to shake away her fear in order to stop him from going completely out of control. In the hospital, though, only hours before he'd left, when she had been so sure her good intentions would go over well and he'd struck out at her . . . She'd been terrified. And then with the way he'd attacked Naruto . . .

"But by constantly trying to make that perfection happen, make it exist, could a person not better themselves?"

Only hours before he'd left. Only hours before both he and Gaara had re-thought what side of the line they wanted to stand on.

They'd switched sides near-simultaneously. That had to count for something.

For a moment he was silent, thumb rubbing against her index finger. "For the self, that may work, but only until you lose the line between possibility and idealism." His hand clenched. "But when you do it to others . . ."

Rejecting him because of his violence, his insanity, because of her fear, when Sasuke had elicited the same responses from her by running along the exact same lines would be the blackest of hypocrisy.

She twisted away carefully, turning to face him. "Then that's not right. At all."

Maintaining the distance between them could mean either that she was supposed to take the step or that he was still less than content with her, if not both. "Few things ever are."

She still had far too many questions she needed to ask him, had far too many things that needed clarified. Standing around watching him wouldn't get any of them answered. Her only problem would be getting him to trust her enough again to be open.

Reaching out, she tugged on his sash, watching as his expression settled at vaguely curious. "I have to go pick up a few things."

"I'm supposed to find books for the Hokage."

She blinked. "The library's inside."

He smirked.

She may have just come closer to dying than she ever had in her entire life.

But . . .

Leaning closer, she inhaled against his shoulder, stopping only when she noticed how he'd gone from vaguely curious to definitely focused. "You didn't kill anyone. This soon after, you'd definitely smell like it if you did. But you didn't."

"I frightened them, so they sent me away."

It was probably wrong to be proud of herself for not showing too much outward dismay. "But only for a little while."

"It doesn't matter."

More parallels. She chose her words carefully. "Should they have given you the benefit of the doubt?"

"No." The corner of his mouth twitched. "That would be stupid."

"Only possibly." She smiled faintly in return and formulated the closest she could come to an apology. "We both misjudged each other, didn't we?"

"Yeah."

That, she supposed, would be the closest he'd come to one as well.

He left without saying goodbye. She decided that, in regards to all the trouble he was putting her through, she had no reason to be upset. That didn't mean she could talk herself out of a sense of disappointment, confusion. Sakura wasn't the only one that seemed confused, though. Her sometimes-companion stopped her in the street two weeks later to question her reasons for carrying an armful of cut flowers before moving close enough to unsettle her and demanding to know why she had them in the first place.

"They're for the hospital," she gaped.

"But why? They just die. They're only useful while they're pretty, and they look pretty for a couple of days and then they _die._ And then they're useless, and you throw them away for new ones."

"You know how this works. People don't mind that they're only temporary."

"So they accept that something will disappoint where it once brought happiness? Where's the sense in that?"

If she took his words at the level she believed he was aiming for, then it sounded almost like he was trying to talk her away from him. "Sometimes we have to take the bad with the good. Perfection is impossible, you said."

He watched her, considering. "You got them for the people you've worked with."

"Yeah."

"You're too soft."

"I heard it from the Fifth already." It was her turn to consider. "Would you rather I was like you?"

"You would put up a better fight, if you were."

"One of us would be dead by now, if I were. By accident or otherwise."

He nodded, lips twitching into an almost-smile, but said nothing, made no attempt to touch her. She told herself that it was hesitation on his part, told herself the next time she saw him that she reached out in order to help him feel more comfortable and not because she missed the contact as well. He may have made the move to head her off on her way home that evening, but he still didn't relax at her embrace. She found it both understandable and disappointing.

"Tell me," she tried, her cheek against his, hand pressing flat against his chest. "Do you think people believe in fate for comfort?"

"It would be easy to, wouldn't it? To believe that everything that happens does so because it's supposed to." He paused, then pulled back to look at her. "To think that way would justify the thinker's actions, whatever they may be, because if something wasn't _supposed_ to happen it simply wouldn't."

"I don't see a way to prove if there is such a thing as fate, either. Anything could happen for any reason. Reactions to other events, progressions, patterns . . ."

"Willpower. But if there's fate, then what we want is meaningless. If there's not . . ."

She shrugged. "It seems like comfort both ways. 'I can change things' versus 'Everything will eventually fall into its designated place, no matter what.'"

"Maybe we should worry more about what's definitely happening or going to happen, instead of about how our thought patterns may or may not affect the rest of the world."

"Definitely," she grinned.

For a moment he was silent, watching something over her shoulder thoughtfully. "We're not fighting."

"Yeah."

Another pause, his hand rubbing her side absently. "This never could have gotten this far had he still been around."

"No." Sakura shook her head. "It couldn't have."

It would be perfectly all right to lean against him, be held, and wait for as long as it would take something to disrupt them. It would be better, though, to try to repair the damage she'd done. His hand half-raised when hers settled against the side of his face, her thumb rubbing over his brow ridge. The gesture seemed to trouble him more than it had in the past. "What are you doing?"

"Looking."

The place on his forehead that wrinkled when he was either confused or agitated took both of her thumbs and a few tries to be smoothed. Eventually, though, it seemed that he understood what she was attempting to do and simply stood, expression forced to calm, head down and eyes closed as her fingertips brushed his hair away from his forehead, traced his cheekbones, grazed over his lips.

He might trust her after all, she decided. Or he might just want to badly enough to risk her hurting him again.

She didn't want to hurt him again.

It might have been because he could let her touch him, or because he might still trust her, or even because he seemed that much less threatening in repose that she leaned forward to press her lips against the spot of skin between his eyes.

She'd never seen him move that fast before. His head jerked up and he stared for only a fraction of a second before latching onto her, the simple lock he used to twist one of her arms behind her back effectively immobilizing her without actually causing pain. _"Do not,"_ he hissed, face inches from hers, eyes wild, _"play games with me."_

"I'm not." It had become far more serious than any game, than anything she'd expected. The fingers of her free hand skimmed over his cheek as she leaned back in to butt her forehead against his, willing the muscles that had stiffened in shock to relax. She could grant him this moment of domination on one condition: that he realized it didn't come for free.

"Who was Yashamaru?"

The hand holding hers, maintaining the lock on her arm, clenched hard enough to hurt.

Her perfect bait and hook. Herself.

He hadn't seen it coming until she had him.

"Tell me."

"My mother's brother. One of the medical ninjas on the team assigned to keep track of me when I was a child." He glared at her. "He tried to kill me. I killed him instead."

Things he'd said long before suddenly started to make sense. "You've been telling me about him from almost the beginning."

He nodded once, tersely.

"You said I reminded you of him."

"When you tried to stop me from killing the Uchiha. It saved your life."

There had to be more. "What happened?"

"He told me I was precious to him. He told me he loved me. Then he accepted a mission to assassinate me."

The way his expression had gone completely blank said that had to have been where everything in his life took a sudden, major turn for the worst. Sakura wrapped her arm around him, pressed her face against his throat, trying to think of anything to say other than the "I'm sorry" she managed to mumble out.

He let go of her hand, pulling back so she could see his sneer. "I don't want your pity."

"It's not pity." She bit her lip. "Pity implies . . . Thinking less of someone."

The way his muscles tensed said he was ready to either bolt or tear something apart. The safest place for her to be with him was still as close as possible; running her hands over his back to gauge how far he was from snapping, considering the warm skin of his cheek and throat as possible places to leave another kiss as proof of her support, her affection.

If closer was safer, then his previously stated desires didn't seem nearly as unreasonable.

"I know what it implies." Forehead set back against hers, his murmured words were close enough that she could almost feel them, could almost feel his lips move. If she leaned in the slightest bit more, she would be able to. What had happened the last time they'd ended up in this situation . . . was irrelevant. Had been a fluke. Needed to be continued.

"But what it actually _means,_" he continued, "Is that since you feel sorry for them, you behave differently towards a person than you usually would."

He had her. Anything she did out of the ordinary would be seen as a gesture of condescension.

"But . . ." His hand caressed the nape of her neck. "You wouldn't be foolish enough to do anything like that, would you?"

If she pressed her face against his shoulder, he couldn't see the way her cheeks colored. "No. Of course not."


	8. 8

The infamous side note: -maru is a masculine suffix. Yes, Yashamaru was his uncle.  
Music: Project C—Phase 3 (Broken Progression) v. NIN—Closer

* * *

The peace between them was still new, still shaky, and still not quite trusted by either.

"Don't you get tired of the trip?" she asked him once, breaking the silence of their afternoon walk through Konoha.

Evidently in an odd mood, Gaara gave her a sidelong look before turning his attention back to the ground in front of him. "Maybe."

"I'm kind of surprised you haven't tried to talk me into visiting you yet."

"That would defeat the Kazekage's purpose of sending me here. It's a convenient method of keeping me out of the way when they have no immediate use for me."

There was absolutely no inflection to his words, nothing to give her the slightest indication as to what he was thought of such treatment.

"Besides . . ." The twist of his mouth could have been either malice or irony. "It goads him to no end that I can be kept _in line_ this easily by another Hidden Village."

Remembering all of the times he'd frightened her nearly out of her mind, all of the times he'd pushed and harassed her, the times that she'd almost been attacked by him, Sakura decided that both the terms "in line" and "easily" were relative.

She was silent for a few minutes, scuffing her feet on the ground as she tried to figure out a way to rid herself of him before returning home.

"Tell me," he started, catching her attention. "Why do you think it's so hard for people to let go?"

The possibilities behind that question . . . He was leading her.

"Of what?"

"Anything."

"You said it was greed."

"I know what I said."

Which meant he wanted her opinion. And if he was aiming in the direction she thought he was, only incredibly careful wording would keep her from getting into a fight with him.

But damn him, she was tired of walking carefully.

Chin up, she watched him as she replied. "Because people like the idea of things being stable, not changing. Stability is safety. Change brings the unknown."

"I'm _talking_ about people that cling to the past."

He was definitely aiming in one particular direction.

Sakura kicked a pebble along for a few steps as she considered. "I think they're clinging to memories more than the past itself. If something that happened was flawed but made them happy, they want to be selective, to remember being happy and not the problems. And . . ." She clenched her teeth to prevent herself from biting her lip. "And if things go wrong later on, the memory of happiness is a place to retreat to. So people cling to it, their memories of things being all right, their associations . . . in order to feel safe."

"Do you?"

He was watching her again, his expression perfectly blank and his green eyes not showing the least bit of feeling; as outwardly emotive as . . .

She wouldn't lie to him. "Yeah. Sometimes, I do."

Silence.

After a few more minutes he stopped walking; then glared at her when she turned to face him. "We've passed the way back to your house three times now."

She could say something that might lessen or hide the fact that she was still unsure of having him walk home with her. She could say something cruel or rude, watch him storm off, and wonder what his mindset would be the next time she saw him. She could keep walking and wait for his temper to boil over.

She could redirect him.

"Do you worry?"

The only response she got was another glare. Undaunted, Sakura reached out, caught one of his hands in hers. "Do you?"

"About _what?_"

The inflection there meant that he knew damned well what.

"About my holding onto the past."

"It'd be stupid to," he growled, but his fingers folded with hers.

Pressing him was probably comparable to playing with fire—barehanded.

"But do you?"

She watched him glance back and forth between their hands and her face, watched him weigh his options, and realized that he was as reluctant to give up what she was asking of him as she was to return in kind.

Minutes passed. She brought their hands up, examining his fingertips, his calluses, the way their palms fit together. A good medic-nin doesn't give up, Tsunade had said—so Sakura pushed again. "Tell me."

With the degree to which they were under each other's skin, if things ever came down to a fight between them . . . They could simply stand and speak, and cut each other in far harsher ways than they could with weapons.

Sasuke could easily . . .

No.

She pressed Gaara's hand to her throat, aware of the gesture being one of trust, submission. Perhaps, given time—or the proper bait—he could be coaxed into responding.

"If you care for someone," he said sharply, suddenly, "then people will use it against you. They'll take what you care for and hold it over your head, push you with it, threaten you, and you can't do a thing to prevent it."

"Is that what you did to Naruto, before?"

His upper lip curled before he answered. "Yes. It's exactly what I did to Naruto." Thumb rubbing gently against her carotid, he continued. "But . . . It made him strong. He _loved_ you. Both of you. And because of that, he won."

Because the push was hard enough, and the outcome otherwise was unacceptable.

"Loved, not loves?"

"How he reacts towards what may have become has yet to be determined."

She watched the ground between them, lost in thought. She hadn't considered that he could try to form an association, a relationship of some type with any of them in order to gain what he saw as Naruto's edge in their fight.

"Yes," he said, voice only somewhat softer than before. The hand against her throat dropped, fingers linking with hers again. "Sometimes I do worry."

Because if she could let herself forgive him for what he'd done, for his missteps, she could in all likelihood forgive Sasuke.

She wasn't even sure she could honestly tell him to not worry. This put an entirely new edge on his push for her to . . . Her to what? Anymore, she wasn't even sure.

"What do you want from this? From me?" Looking up at him, she knew she was asking too much but still thought she was ready for any answer. Her companionship, her comfort, her confirming that he was more to her than a tool, an annoyance, or a weapon . . . Even just for her to give in.

"Nothing." He pulled his hand away from hers when she blinked at him, confused. "I don't want anything from you."

As she watched him walk away, she was sure that she'd pushed him too hard in the same way that he'd pushed her before, her assault emotional instead of a physical threat. And as she turned to head home, she was also sure that he'd be back.

When push came to shove, she decided, it was really . . .

He stopped her directly in front of her door, having approached so stealthily she didn't know he was there until the hand under her chin jerked her head back and the arm around her midsection pinned her against him. _"Everything,"_ he hissed, then pressed a single, harsh kiss against the side of her neck and was gone before she had time to do more than gasp.

Only a matter of time. What it came down to was waiting for the break.

And whenever that would come . . .

She wanted to discuss certainty with him, to find out what he thought about the possibility of some things being inevitable. His absence didn't help answer her questions but left her time to collect the ingredients she needed, to measure weights and ratios in a preparation she hadn't expected to need for herself until much later and under much different circumstances.

She may have been too young, still—they both might be—but she was definitely too young to want to worry about pregnancy.

•••

"—she should know?"

"I'll tell her when I feel like it."

Everything seemed . . . fuzzy, surreal. The taste in her mouth meant that she'd been unconscious for a few hours.

The first speaker's muted voice caught her attention, must've been what had woken her. Sakura frowned slightly, trying to make sense of the words. When she shifted, the surface she was laying on shifted with her.

"They don't appreciate that you're here, and they don't appreciate that you've brushed them all aside."

"Why should I care?" The disinterested voice, the scent, and the hand carefully running through her hair were all familiar.

"Because the other medics said she almost burnt herself out with her last patient. She needs to rest somewhere peaceful."

Of course. A good medic-nin doesn't give up, Tsunade had said. Sakura didn't remember the Fifth ever saying anything about how, after a day of her own missions or training, she could still be called back to the hospital when the wounded started to pour in. She remembered struggling with everything she had to finish the last healing; then attempting to get up and collapsing.

"And you're here to play the concerned other as well?" Gaara snorted softly, as if to not disturb her, then continued derisively. "They refuse to leave me in a room alone with her, and if I go, Copy-ninja, I'm taking her with me."

The words and acoustics meant they were in the hallway. And of course the other speaker was Kakashi, there to see her sprawled across what had to be Gaara's lap like a sacrifice to some bloodthirsty demigod. It took concentration to keep from showing that she was awake, to keep her breathing slow and even and to not pull away from the sand supporting what parts of her his legs couldn't. She still blamed it on the fact that her sleep-fogged mind wasn't fully alert yet and not on her own curiosity that she stayed motionless.

"So you'd just carry her out? She's not yours, you know." Through all of it, her former instructor tried to maintain his air of good humor. She knew from experience that he had picked the wrong person to hold out against.

"Yes and no." Gaara's fingers skimmed through her hair again, making her wonder how much of a mess he'd made of it. "She's her own person. She thinks, she talks, she fights, she smiles . . ." A pause. "She thinks that what I think matters. She talks to me. She fights me when others would refuse to stand against me, and then she smiles at me. She is mine."

Kakashi's voice shifted from smooth and good-humored to slightly aggravated. "Don't mime caring with me. I've seen how you treat her."

"And don't take the moral high horse with me. I push her. The Fifth pushes her. Now she pushes herself." Another pause, his fingertips gently brushing her face in a gesture probably meant just to disturb their observer. "It's become familiar."

Unless something had changed, she knew what familiarity meant to him.

Gaara's tone shifted slightly, became cold, mocking, the same one he'd used against her so many times. "And now you push, now _you _come in miming caring, concern, now you see her as something to be proud of even though it was your negligence that stunted her progress to begin with."

"Your own village is afraid to team you up with other people, and you try to tell _me_ what I've done wrong? I told you before, stop making assumptions about—"

"You forget. I saw her fight when she couldn't do anything more specialized than a shadow clone. I also know you refused to train Uzumaki Naruto in order to train the Uchiha. I have no doubt where your focus was in that team."

"If I hadn't trained him, you would have killed him."

It seemed reasonable. No one had expected Naruto to progress past the first round, no matter what kind of training he'd gotten. No one had had faith in him—or in her.

But Sasuke, even with training . . .

She could piece together Gaara's expression by the sound of his voice, feel the ego in it, picture the way his chin dropped and his sneer. "I almost killed him anyway."

Concentrating on her breathing, Sakura was only aware of how her hand was starting to clench when his unobtrusively covered it. He knew. He knew she was awake just as well as she knew exactly where Kakashi was, how her former instructor would have to be weighing his options. Fight, or flee. Stay and risk "waking" her, or let Gaara have his way.

Letting Gaara have his way was a hard thing to do.

"Tell me," came the musing continuation, "was it because you thought he reminded you of someone?" The Sand-nin's tone dropped to calculating, cutting. "Yourself? Or could it be—"

"You don't know what you're talking about," snapped Kakashi, and for the life of her she couldn't remember having heard him that angry in years.

"Don't I?" And once again he was back to mockingly amused, voice having rippled through all of its variations of scorn. "She'll see the Fifth when she's ready to. Until then, follow the others' example and let us be."

Others?

Of course. He'd probably gotten into various verbal battles with everyone that had come near them. Her still being there meant that his only concordance had been to stay in the open, but still in the building. The fact that she couldn't hear or sense anyone else nearby said that he had been successful in chasing her fellow medics off.

Apparently the Sand ninja talking to her former instructor like that was simply him trying to drive the other man away.

There was a pause that could only be Kakashi considering his options again, deciding whether or not a threat would be effective, if saying something else could manage to not sound petty or trite. In the end he said nothing.

After a few moments, Gaara's fingers worked their way back into her hair. "You can stop pretending now."

She shifted fully onto her back and watched him for a little while, not sure how to react to his calm demeanor in relation to his recent words. Miming caring, Kakashi had called it. But was he right? Were either of them right?

"You shouldn't have done that," she said. Because he'd once again given her far too much to consider.

"He wouldn't leave," he returned.

She scowled and struggled to sit up, sliding her weight off of his thigh and hating herself for having shown weakness in front of him. No longer needed, his sand slithered across the floor and over her shins before disappearing into the gourd beside him. She didn't doubt he did it just to see how she reacted to its touch. Ignoring it meant she could focus on her more pressing reasons to be annoyed with him. "How many other people were you that _pleasant_ towards?"

Expecting him to be contrite was futile. "Enough."

When she moved to withdraw her legs from over his, he casually draped his left arm across her knees. Continuing her motion would be pulling away from him.

He might be irascible, frustrating, unstable, manipulating, and far too moody, but she still didn't want to do that.

"But why?"

"You're . . . peaceful to watch."

And knowing him, his enjoyment of a quiet moment would be stymied with a worried, suspicious, or otherwise attentive other hovering nearby. Him wanting to feel peaceful, wanting to stop fighting for once was enough of a reason for her to not be as angry, to not resist when he pulled her in to lean against him.

His saying that she was an intrinsic part of his brief mental peace crippled Kakashi's theory about him miming caring.

She sighed and pressed her forehead against his throat. "How much trouble am I going to be in because of you?"

"The Fifth said I could be here."

"I doubt she meant that you could scare everyone off that tried to come near me," she grumbled.

His shoulder shifted under her cheek in what may have been a shrug. "They should have known better."

She wasn't sure what was worse—his being cruel and overbearing, or his making it sound rational. "Probably."

"You're upset by it, though." It wasn't a question.

Telling him she preferred he didn't make a habit of it was too light. Telling him she didn't want to have to worry that he'd alienate her from everyone she knew was too much. Midway between them would have to work.

"Yeah."

A moment passed. Gaara's hand settled at the dip of her waist. "Would you prefer that he was here?"

Was she afraid to be alone with him, he meant. Was she willing to ignore the way he held her, the fact that he'd come to her like a shark drawn by the smell of blood but hadn't really done more than make people uncomfortable enough to want to avoid him? Was she willing to give up his peaceful moments for a human buffer?

She sat up, her hand gently cupping the swell of his bicep. "No." If he could give a little, so could she. "I . . . like this." Sudden shyness made her glance away before continuing. "I guess . . . it's gotten familiar."

He didn't say anything, but the suddenly predatory way he considered her made her stomach twist into nervous knots, made her make a sudden bid for an escape. Maybe she'd opened up too much, maybe she'd given him too much of an in. "I've got to get a drink, my mouth feels like—"

"Here."

With that, his water bottle was pressed into her hands. She watched him as she tried to rinse the taste of sleep away, noting his lack of aggression towards her openness. Maybe . . .

The way he reached out to accept the bottle after she was finished.

Give and take.

They might be on to something.

Her hand pressed against his chest, was covered by his. She knew she should probably worry about how his heartbeat sped up, the way he was watching her face. "At what point did it start to mean more to you than just fighting?"

A crooked smile was his first response. "I don't know." The hand against her side traced up, cupped her cheek. "Maybe . . . about here."

The knots in her stomach compounded upon themselves. She still shifted closer, slid her arm around his shoulders.

If she did it, she'd never get rid of him.

"I can only promise you pain," he murmured, his eyes focused slightly lower than her own.

"Isn't that all anyone can?"

"Some people would promise you love, happiness . . ."

He wasn't some people.

"They could only promise to try." She swallowed hard. "There's only one thing we can be sure of."

He made a small sound that may have been assent. "And that, too, the sensation—" His breath whispered against her face, and she shivered. "We need to feel."

"Addicted, perhaps."

She'd definitely never get rid of him.

"Definitely." His other hand brushed against her hair, her throat, finally settling just below her ear, his fingertips pressing gently against the back of her skull. When he mirrored its position with the other, there was no denying that he was doing it to hold her in place; that the only way out of this situation would be to bolt immediately.

She'd never get rid of him—but if they could keep up this openness, this give and take, then she didn't want to be rid of him.

He finally met her gaze. "Are you afraid of me?"

She'd probably been stuck with him from the first time she'd reached out.

Sakura leaned in carefully, the press of her lips against his soft but definite. Eventually she pulled back with a faint smile. "Not so much."

On some level she must have known that he wouldn't let her end it there. She tried to move away, unsure of what their next step would be, but only succeeded in getting her legs halfway over him before he snaked an arm around her waist and muscled her onto his lap. Sand against the backs of her knees adjusted her position, settled her on and around him as he pulled her face down to his.

It was strange, awkward at first—their mouths opening almost tentatively against each other's; tongues hesitant, unsure—but the kiss became more certain the longer it went on. And by the time she stopped worrying about if she was doing everything all right, it had become—

His left hand fisted in her hair; the other ran down her spine, across her hip, and over her thigh.

Had become—

She shifted closer, because even though she was wrapped around him she still wasn't close enough. Doing so brought her hips flush against his and gave her no way to ignore his arousal.

Had become—

His soft groan was muffled against her mouth, his grip tightening momentarily before his lips were against her throat, bending her backwards with the force of his kisses. He only relented when she hissed at his teeth scraping her skin, adjusted his method to allow her to sit upright. "Like this?"

"Yeah."

Had become what she'd been the most afraid it would be. Amazing.

The hand on her thigh moved up her body, first cupping, then caressing. "Like this?"

"Yeah." And after a ragged breath: "This?" She tried to mirror the action on him, thrusting her hands under his shirt and stroking his skin with her fingertips. Infatuated with his warmth, the suddenly discovered curve of his muscles, she hesitated only when she felt him sharply draw breath.

"Yeah," he rasped, then put an end to any further questions by covering her mouth with another, near-frantic kiss. She felt his chest shake with his snarl more than she heard it, felt the flex of his arms help her rub against him with an intensity she hadn't known she possessed, and dimly wondered if she'd also been afraid of her own need, of how vulnerable she'd be if she had done this without having him at her same emotional level.

Gaara's lips broke away from hers but he remained close, panting, his eyes wild. "Where?"

She knew what he meant.

"Not here." She probably shouldn't be even considering what she was about to propose, but she couldn't think of a single reason to hold back. "My house . . . No one's there."

He didn't ask her if she was sure about any of it, didn't question things in any way. She didn't expect him to.

"I have to see the Fifth first, you said?" Before they left, before things got any more out of hand, before she decided that it was entirely too tempting and kissed him again.

He glanced pointedly at the door of what must have been her room as his fingertips ghosted up the inside of her thigh. "Not necessarily," he murmured.

Not a question, but a push. She thought she knew why.

"I won't change my mind." Because he was too close, because his lips were soft and slick against hers and she wanted him, wanted that same confirmation more than she wanted to know if his mouth could be that generous and feel that utterly, completely perfect on the rest of her. "I won't run. I won't, I—"

He smothered her denials with yet another kiss.

It was strange, she decided. He didn't taste like much of anything.

"She's seeing to the new arrivals," he grated, finally.

It took entirely too much willpower to move away from him. He stood, grimaced in the direction of the main building. "I'll wait outside."

The last thing she wanted was to be separated from him, but walking down a hallway that smelled like the blood of the wounded could do nothing good for his control or temperament. The handful of odd looks she got said that he'd been thoroughly brutal in dealing with her fellow medics and would have posed more problems had he been with her. They had no reason to appreciate him being in the hospital at all, she realized, even without his arrogant or vitriolic tendencies. His way of life went completely against everything they worked for.

She met Tsunade between patients. True to form, the other didn't mince words. "Did he tell you anything?"

"Like what?"

She'd never known the Fifth to be anything but blunt. "Most of the wounded were on a scouting mission in Sound's territory. I've talked to a number of them. The patterns of attacks seem to indicate that we're closing in."

Closer to Orochimaru.

Closer to Sasuke.

And Gaara had known.

And try as she might, she couldn't give herself a single logical reason to be upset.

"This means that you may be working in the field soon," Tsunade continued. "And you understand that if you tire yourself out this much in the field, you become a liability."

"Yes, Hokage." She couldn't resist. "I understood where I was."

The fact that she probably would have been as tenacious with a wounded fighter no matter what was left untouched. She still might have imagined the other's faint smile. "You don't make me regret taking you on." With a weary, mock-abused scowl, Tsunade continued. "Your other, though . . ."

Him being referred to as her anything was strange. "How many complaints so far?"

"Too many." The Fifth sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "And I doubt I've heard the last of them. When I told him where you were, I didn't think it'd turn into a reenactment of the old monster-guarding-the-maiden story." She shook her head. "I suppose I misjudged him."

The fact that Sakura was having this discussion meant that he'd come to some form of agreement with the Fifth before he had with her. It also meant that learning he'd managed to throw Leaf's Hokage off stride would probably delight him to no end.

He'd still be waiting for her.

"You said he's too hard to kill for me to have to worry about losing him." Sakura glanced away, her voice soft. "What about me, though? What if I get killed?"

She already knew. His keeping the resulting destruction focused on whoever he found primarily responsible would be amazing.

Tsunade waited until she looked up, then touched a finger to the seal on her forehead. "Remind me to teach you about this sometime soon."

•••

He'd picked a spot to wait where he almost blended into the lengthening shadows, arms folded, expression emotionless. The fact that he didn't step forward meant that he was judging her reaction, assessing her mental state.

"You knew."

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to be sure you were doing it for me."

Of course. The way he'd held onto her before, held her in place . . . One way or the other he would have kissed her, in order to find out once and for all if he meant something to her in that way.

"You still worry that I'd leave you to follow him, don't you?" She bit her lip. "Do you think I would?"

She'd flat-out told him that she clung to the past. He had every reason to think that she would.

"It'd be stupid of you to."

Cold. Harsh. Completely unrepentant. It was hard to imagine him any other way.

"Do you?"

Barely illuminated, a muscle in his cheek flexed as he clenched his jaw. "You're not supposed to be stupid."

Neither of his statements had answered her questions. She decided to take the compliment he offered as recompense. "You're impossible."

"You complain too much."

His rapid-fire return paradoxically made her smile. "Did I mention hopeless, as well?"

Through the shadows, she saw his lips curve faintly in return, barely heard his murmur. "If I were without hope, I wouldn't be here now."

Monster.

Her monster.

"What am I supposed to do with you?"

The gleam of teeth in his smile said that he had at least one idea. He considered her proffered hand, her unspoken promise of confirmation for only the space of a few seconds before he stepped forward to accept.

They were silent on the way, fingers loosely linked, his thumb occasionally rubbing over hers. For the time being, there was nothing to be said. He only let go for as long as it took her door to be opened and closed behind them, replacing the contact with the press of his fingertips against the small of her back as he followed her to her room. It wasn't until after she'd made sure the blinds were tightly shut that he advanced, arms engulfing her when she moved to meet him midway.

It was strange to help him with the assorted straps and buckles crisscrossing his body, stranger to watch his hands baring her skin. She stepped back into his arms once past the intricacies of each other's clothing, mouth against his, murmuring vague protest as his inexperienced caresses were too harsh in some places, far too gentle in others.

"Sorry," he whispered, slick fingers sliding against her, into her, probing carefully. "Like this?"

The way she jerked her hips forward against his hand was taken for assent even before her murmured "Yeah," before she traced down his stomach and wrapped her hands around him in return. "Like this?"

His teeth grazed against her throat, dug into her shoulder. "Harder."

What she ended up doing took all of her nerve and surely didn't count as "harder," but definitely put an end to his standing. Finally on her bed and with both of his hands buried in her hair, his soft moans and shivers as she took him as far down her throat as possible told her exactly how she was affecting him.

"Stop," he gasped. "Stop, please stop." Rising, she had a fraction of a second to wonder if she'd done something wrong before he toppled her onto her back, mouth desperate against hers, hands roughly parting her knees.

Damn it, she was under him after all.

"I didn't want this," she whispered.

"Means you do now," he replied hoarsely, and pressed a short kiss against her breastbone; then licked her navel on his way down. The combined rub of his tongue and slide of his fingers made sure that she had no reason to change her mind. Faintly, she wondered if she'd felt anything like that for him, how it'd feel if he actually—

She wasn't sure exactly what she said, just that the tone was incoherently pleading. He immediately abandoned what he was doing, though, slid an arm under her to help roll them both to their sides. He didn't have to ask and she didn't have to elaborate, and in the end it was her hand that guided him into her. With her leg over his hip and heel dug tightly into the back of his thigh, his hand gripping her bottom to help her, they steadily rocked against each other as his bangs tickled her shoulder, wet lips gentle against delicate skin, tongue coaxing.

He could have been beyond her reach, beyond sanity. He could have mauled her, been vicious instead of careful, could have spent less time trying to please her and gone straight for his intended goal. But he wanted her to enjoy it, he'd said. And with her breath rasping in time with his, her mouth against his temple, his ear, she did.

It still wasn't enough. Eventually the nature of the act eroded his control, his acquiescence towards her unspoken request, and with a snarl he rolled her onto her back again. She further muffled his muted growls against her shoulder, her knee high against his ribs and her hands frantically caressing the muscles of his back, already appreciating the angle and the way he seemed to fill her more completely. It was still uncomfortable, but she was able to ignore that fact as his thrusts became harder, finally culminating as he climaxed with a throaty moan.

He wouldn't let go when she shifted, didn't pull back, gave no impression that he had any intention of moving off of her. And wrapped around him as completely as she could be, she couldn't think of a way that she'd change any of it.

"Tell me," he murmured against her cheek, "why this will work."

She smiled and brushed her lips against his before she responded. "Irony."

The way he smiled back before leaning in to deepen the kiss said that he understood.

Spring and winter.

Healer and destroyer.

Human and monster.

The medical ninja, and the walking weapon who couldn't be hurt.

She realized when he started moving again that even though he had finished, he still wasn't done. He kissed her throughout the second time, stifling her cries with his mouth when his intensity and the drive of his body against hers pushed her to her own release.

Around the third time, she realized that she probably wouldn't get much sleep that night.

Gaara nuzzled her forehead, grimacing faintly when the drying sweat on their skin made her cheek stick to his shoulder. "What from here?"

"I don't know." But she was sure they'd figure something out.

A pause. "The Fifth thinks it's good for the alliance."

"The Fifth thinks you're a good match for me."

"And you?" He leaned to meet her, lips brushing her cheek before settling against hers.

"I think . . ."

He'd said he wanted everything. Conversation wouldn't stop, even if the way he watched her had taken on a new degree of fascination.

She propped herself up over him, fingertips brushing his face. "I think I have no regrets."

Give and take. They could definitely make it work.

The way his lips curved into a smirk was devastatingly perfect, perfectly familiar. "I win."

If they didn't kill each other first, that was.

"Shut up," she replied, and crushed her mouth down onto his.

* * *

. . .

* * *

AN: I'd definitely like to thank the people that helped me get through this: Ciastor and Vanya Starwind for being my patient sounding boards and betas—primarily for being patient, though; Yrbanys for helping with my assorted canon questions; Du Vendredi for random thoughts and the term "smex popsicle"; Necowaffer for helping find lost words and the NIN association; and of course, the support of the reviewers.


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